5 Budget Calculators You Can Use to Get the Most ROI

 As a business owner, you are constantly on the lookout for ways to increase profits and streamline expenses. You know only too well how hard you have to work for every dollar you spend on building your business. Turning the tables to make those dollars work for you is only possible when you make sure you are receiving a high return on all your investments.

Those investments may take the form of employees, equipment, client relations, public reputation, bank relationships, liquid assets, or monetary investments. Whatever investments you made over the years in your business, there is a way to measure the return you are getting on them.

Take a look at these five budgeting tools you can use to get the most return on investment. One of them or more may just end up giving you some insight into new ways you can use your dollars to work hard for you.

1. The Self-Employed Tax Calculator at Bankrate is a good way to check your accountant’s work. Use it to estimate how much you owe to the government in self-employment taxes for this year or the next by entering your personal income and your net business income or loss. Use the floating “Calculate” and “View Report” buttons to find out the divisions between medicare and FICA. No Java required.

2. The Monthly Business Expenses Calculator at is a great way to track all your business expenses. This simple-to-use calculator lets you input all your business expenses from salary, wages, and subcontractor expenses to loan payments, utility bills, and insurance premiums. It even has a miscellaneous field called “All other expenses.”

   When you’re finished completing the fields, just hit “calculate” for the total monthly outgoing cash from your business. If you don’t like what you see, try adjusting certain fields to get an idea of ways to make a big cut in your expenses.

3. The Return on Investment Calculator at Bankrate will help you calculate your investment returns based on your initial investment capital, years of investment, rate of return, estimated inflation rate, your taxation rate, and any annual contributions you make to the initial investment. Basically, this one covers it all, and the price is right: It’s free.

   This calculator is fun to use even if you currently don’t have any business investments. You can use it to determine your return on investments as a test before you ever invest an actual copper penny.

4. The free business loan payment calculator at Free-Online-Calculator-Use helps you calculate how much is required to repay a small business loan. This calculator is useful when you are examining your debts and trying to investigate where your money is going every month.

   It can also be useful if you haven’t yet taken out a small business loan. Perhaps after you use this calculator, you may decide that a small business loan is not in your long-term best interests. If there were ever a deterrent to borrowing money for your business, the profit margin field may be that deterrent. It estimates how much sales revenues your business needs in order to repay the principal plus interest.

5. Savvy business owners know that just because something was made for one thing doesn’t mean it can’t be used for something else. The Federal Student Aid Budget Calculator is designed to help families review their expenses, total income, and any additional resources. Even though this calculator is geared toward students, this is an excellent calculator to apply to business concerns.

   General categories under the expenses include housing, transportation, entertainment, and education. To use the calculator, click on each category, which will then open up a box where you can enter your information. Make numerical entries in the fields that apply to you. When you’re finished, click “Calculate” to get the results of your total estimated expenses, income, and additional resources. This will also give you your balance budget. If you feel that you have made an error, you can go back and change any field.

   To use this calculator, your browser must be JavaScript compatible. You may need to get a JavaScript plug-in if you don’t already have one.

Sometimes when we use budget calculators, we don’t like what we find out. We may discover that cash is flying out the door in unnecessary ways, or that the truth about our income is not what we thought it was.

If this is the case after you use one of the budget calculators above, don’t despair. Instead, use the calculator as a possibility of what could be if you make adjustments in your budget. Remember, just because you’re not making the kinds of profits you want to today, doesn’t mean you never will.