by Sarah E. Sanuth

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: January 07, 2009

When running a small business, we have to watch our expenses. What are we spending on gasoline, office supplies, and advertising? You could write checks and use your paper statements to keep track of what you are spending money on, but there is more work that goes into it this way, and you could be missing out on some great benefits.

Organization is the one thing that is forgotten when it comes to running a business. We all know we need to do it, but somehow is just gets overlooked. There are many things that need to be kept and monitored, the financials which are the most important are the least thought about, that is until the end of the year.

Paper gets lost, especially those small slivers of paper that get tucked in everywhere; the car console, dropped on the floor, the crack of the seat in your car. It can sometimes take week before you find a receipt that is missing, if you even know it is missing. A small business credit card can do just that for you all in one simple step.

Cash is the one thing that should never be used when paying for expenses in a business. Every penny spent to run a business is tax deductable, why take the chance on losing part of that. Losing the receipts is not the only issues that you can run into when using cash, what about those cents that get dropped in the seat cushions, or misplaced dollars here and there, you forgot cash in the laundry. No cash to lose, one less problem.

Many credit card companies will issue multiple cards on one account. This will not only help you keep track of those receipts but can also keep track of who is spending what, and where.

A small business credit card will also help when it comes to accounting, and taxes. Inputting all those receipts, once you have found them all, into the system can be time consuming and monotonous. But with one statement, all charges are conveniently listed.

Want to know what you spent last month on office supplies or gasoline? The statement that comes with a small business credit card not only will list all your charges, but will categorize expenses as well. This will also help you in determining where to put charges when entering them into a program such as QuickBooks.

In turn, keeping everything organized like this will help when you want to know what you net income was for a given month or quarter. This in turn will give you a better grasp on everything when it comes time for taxes. It is easier to keep track of 12 statements rather than thousands of receipts.

Keeping track of expenses is only part of the benefits of using a small business credit card. Most small business credit card companies such as Advanta offer interest free lines of credit for customers. This will help you upgrade equipment when the time arises. They also offer many other benefits which vary between companies, some of which include cash back and rewards programs.

As long as everything is either paid for with a small business credit card and a check, there will be no reason for any charges or expenses to be missed. Many businesses fail because they forget to keep track of all these things. It doesn't take hiring another person to do this task, just a few minutes a month. Doing so will put you one up on what half of other businesses are missing.

Learn more about this author, Sarah E. Sanuth.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.