Having a viable business idea is a great start in getting your own business up and running, but in the end everything comes down to money. Therefore in order to get your business off the ground you are going to need capital.

How Much?

This is where you need to calculate how much money you will need in order to start up your business. There are calculation tools that you can use in order to indicate all of the different elements you will need to take into account so that you can then put together a final start-up cost. You will need to take into account elements such as buying initial stock, costs of renting premises, buying a company vehicle, carrying out marketing analysis, employing staff, doing your own marketing, establishing your brand along with many other smaller costs. Make sure that you use the tools at your disposal because putting in a little extra effort at this stage could potentially save you a lot of hassle in the future and could make the difference between your business succeeding or failing.

Funding Options

Many people think that their only finance option for starting a business is a bank loan. This could not be further from the truth and so you should take the time to investigate all of the potential options that are available to you. There are tools you can use that will help you to identify your best options that will generally be based around your business type, amount you need and repayment terms. In order to get the full benefit of this type of tool you will need to be able to forecast your future cash flow as accurately as possible. While this might seem like guesswork at the beginning, there are many elements you will already know, such as outgoing costs, that will provide you with a good starting point. There are also tools available to allow you to predict your cash flow and which also make it easy to see how variation in different areas will affect your overall business performance.

In addition to bank loans there are also government grants, government backed loans, investors and circle funds to name just a few. In addition to funding options like these there are also government schemes, such as tax breaks and national insurance holidays that your business may be eligible for, which you should also take advantage of where you can.