Seven Costs to Protect Your Business and Yourself From!

By Kole Moxley, RCS Intern. 

Knowing these sneaky business costs will help prevent you from being caught off guard financially! 

Surprises can cause many reactions such as joy, excitement, fear, anger, sadness, among others. These feelings all vary by person, but there are some surprises that nobody wants to experience, like unexpected expenses.  

In the world of business, protecting your company from these unexpected events is paramount to survival and even the best of us at planning and preparing can be caught off guard. One such preparation is to start an emergency fund to keep your feet under you when tragedy does strike. Another way is to learn more about the small costs that can add up. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has listed seven small expenses that can sneak up and eat away at your profits.  

1 - Shipping costs 

These costs can quickly get out of hand due to the following factors: packaging materials, dimensional weight, shipping method, package carrier and insurance. If you’re still overnighting contracts and mailing invoices to your customers, you might want to consider digital signing software and emailing invoices. Many project management systems offer these tools.  

2 – Taxes  

Another expense listed is taxes. It is recommended that you track your tax liability throughout the year, and track expenses such as educational resources and petty cash purchases to claim them as a business resource deduction and lower your tax bill. 

3 – Subscriptions  

The next item on the list is subscriptions. There are some subscriptions that are necessary, such as the fee for a domain name and hosting service for your website, but many subscriptions that are used to help automate tasks can start to add up quickly and are quite expensive.  

4 – Employee expenses 

This category does not include the big costs such as payroll and benefits but is more about the little things you do for your employees such as any break room snacks or drinks, small incentives for your team, office supplies, or even travel reimbursements. Although it is always good to find ways to motivate your team, keeping track of these costs will help you budget for your business. 

5 – Insurance costs 

In the roofing industry, workers compensation insurance alone can be extremely costly.  Look for companies that specialize in the industry and start with your associations as they often have resources to help.  

6 – Transaction fees 

Another sneaky cost is transaction fees. Different websites offer various rates and payment gateways if you are buying and even selling products online. For example, sites like Etsy charge the sellers a small transaction fee to sell products on their site. Reading the fine print whenever purchasing or selling products online will help you to better understand any transaction fees occurring.  

7 – Cybersecurity  

Finally, we have cybersecurity, something that is becoming increasingly important today. Protecting your business and yourself on the internet can get quite pricey due to the subscription fees for password management tools and firewalls, as well one-time costs for getting these types of systems set up correctly. 

Protect yourself from some major unwanted surprises by preparing against all these sneaky business costs!  

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