How to Manage Business Funding After You Receive it

Securing funding is just the beginning. How you manage it can make or break your business. It may even influence your chances of getting additional funding later on. Whether it’s a loan, grant, line of credit, or investor financing—you need a plan to leverage these resources in a way that fuels your growth and makes your business sustainable.

In this comprehensive guide to managing business funding, we’ll go over practical strategies for using and tracking funding to ensure every dollar works as hard as you do. 

Why you need to carefully manage business funding

If you’re pursuing funding, you should have a section in your business plan that explains how you plan to use the money you’re requesting from lenders or investors. This “use of funds” section can be a spreadsheet, a forecast, or simply a few paragraphs of text. 

Once you have that cash in hand, it’s tempting to think that your business plan has done its job, and all you have to do is use the money. But here’s the issue: things have likely changed and will continue to change since you asked for funding.

If you stick with your original plan and choose not to revisit how you’re using funds—you’re more likely to make costly mistakes. That’s why you need to take the time to review, make adjustments, and track how these changes differ from the original plan in your funding request. 

That way you are making the most out of your newly introduced cash and can easily showcase how it’s being used to any external stakeholders.

How to use your funding 

You can use external funding to grow your business in countless ways. What you choose fully depends on your business stage, the potential for growth, and how well you understand your financials.

Here are a few resources covering tips and specific ways to manage funding for business growth initiatives. 

Funding management resources and tools

Check out our selection of free templates and recommended resources to help you stay on top of your funding long after you receive it.

Free one-page business plan template

Try a business plan format built to help you quicly review and revise your strategy.

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Manage and grow your business with a single tool

LivePlan not only prepares you to raise funding but helps you understand how to run your business with intuitive financial forecasting and performance management features.

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