Save thousands of dollars and retire sooner with a financial plan for your small businesses.

Rod Page, of Intellichoice believes that when it comes to financial planning for small businesses, the worst thing you can do is do nothing.

"For most small businesses," he says "the specifics of the plan matter less than the fact that there is a plan and there is a long term goal. So many of the clients I speak with have been meaning to put together a financial plan for years, but somehow it never made it to the top of the action pile."

While the elements of a financial plan for a small business can be quite specific, the same concepts of any financial plan hold true. Starting early and investing for the long term is a strong strategy.

Take as an example an 18 year old who takes 10% of his pretax earnings every single week of his working career and invests it. As long as he is sensible, the specifics of what he does with it are far less important than the fact that he has a long term plan and that he is investing in his future. With such a simple technique, that (very smart) 18 year is setting himself up for long term wealth.

The same philosophy is true for the financial plans of small businesses.

A lot of people have the mistaken idea that building a financial plan is going to be one of 3 things.

a. The financial planner will trick them into investments for which the planner gets paid a long term trailing commission or

b. It will force them to make a budget and they will lose many of the luxuries they consider to be a guilty pleasure or

It will be terribly complicated and they won't understand what is going on

Let's take a look at each of these concerns one at a time.

a. How can I find a planner I trust to help me with my small business?

Rod believes a lot of these ideas about being unable to trust financial planners have come about because there have been and still are unscrupulous planners around.

Of course it is smart to be cautious. This is your money and your future that is on the table and you need to make sure you are making the right decisions.

He recommends that the first step is finding a planner you can trust and one of the best ways of doing that is by referrals.

"Ask around," he says. "Ask people who are also in small business who they use and then check them out for yourself. "

"The bulk of our clients come to us that way – by people chatting at a barbecue or at the pub. We like it that way and figure it means we must be doing something right."

A good financial planner will be happy to answer all your questions about how they would go about developing a financial plan for your small business as well as how they will be getting paid.

b. Will I have to do up a budget?

Developing a budget and managing how much money is going in and how much is going out is of course a very important part of any financial plan. The key thing to remember though is that it is your money and you are in charge. Sure giving up your daily morning takeaway coffee might save you $20 a week but it is up to you whether that is money well spent. A good financial planner can give you some easy ways to manage your money that can be worked into your desired lifestyle.

c. Will the financial plan be complicated?

Sure there are many, many products and financial strategies available and that array of choices can sometimes be bewildering. Rod and Intellichoice like to follow the KISS principle and not deviate too far from the basics.

"If you forget about the specifics for a moment," Rod says, "the goal of a financial plan boils down to 3 main steps. The first is to make sure all insurances are in place– not just your business and house and car, but also your life and income. After that, you need to make sure that your home and superannuation are set up in the best way possible and you are paying into them regularly and often. Once you have good, strong foundations, you can then look at other investments that can help you achieve your lifestyle goals."

We will look at this process in more details in future articles.