Did you know that a whopping 71.2% of early-stage entrepreneurs started a business to build great wealth or a very high income? 

However, to reach a steady income that you might consider great wealth, you first need to set up a supporting infrastructure that will stop the money drain.

We explored the most common small business financial challenges and offered a solution that will benefit you as a small business owner, your employees, clients, and, of course, your finances. 

  • Invoice automation can save a company, on average, $34,116 annually.
  • Only 17% of projects finish without any delay. 
  • Poor communication at work costs between $9,284 and over $30,000 per employee per year. 
  • CAKE.com offers 3 tools (Clockify, Plaky, and Pumble) that successfully deal with challenges concerning communication, invoicing, and project management.

Undercharging is a constant threat to small businesses

Deciding on the cost of your projects is one of the most important financial aspects of your small business. If you charge too much, you can lose existing clients or not attract new ones. On the other hand, if you’re not charging enough, your business is barely surviving. 

Small business owner, Gerry Washack, admits that underpricing causes initial financial struggles:

“I priced based on what I thought clients would pay instead of what my time was actually worth, and the result was working more hours for less profit”.

In addition to the already mentioned, undercharging also happens when you have no knowledge of the time that goes into your projects. That said, it’s important to track time and consider both billable and non-billable hours necessary to complete the project, so that you can price your work correctly and charge the client accordingly.

Further reading: 

Entrepreneurs often have similar challenges, visions, and plans, statistically speaking. Read all about it in the following article: 

  • Top Entrepreneur Statistics to Know When Starting Your Business                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Poor invoicing practices lead to an easily preventable money leak

Invoicing plays a crucial part in keeping finances in order. Manual invoicing has plenty of setbacks, as it’s time-consuming, costly, and prone to errors. The solution may very well lie in invoice automation. In fact, a study by AMI-Partners, The Value of Automated Travel, Expense, and Invoice, shows that automation saves companies:

  • 530 hours annually per finance employee,
  • $34,116 on average annually, and
  • $13 per processed invoice.

This is why it comes as no surprise that 61% of leaders cite automation as their investment priority, according to the Accounts Payable Leaders’ Priorities in 2025 study by the Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership.

Automating small business finances is a step towards better financial management, since it resolves all the issues that manual invoicing has.

Project delays

The Vice President of Business Development at US Professional Funding & US Medical, Chris Cornella, states that project delays are directly tied to finances:

“Every minute your projects are delayed is another minute you don’t earn anything.”

The World Bank’s 2024 research on project delays showed that only 17% of projects went without any delay. The same study found that 43% of projects experienced delays, but 39% didn’t have information on delays whatsoever. Such a high number of undocumented projects also raises concerns about inadequate project record-keeping. 

According to the same research, 60% of project delays were caused by an improper preparation phase. 

Carefully preparing and estimating project cost and time is crucial to completing projects without delaying the outcome. 

Poor communication is an umbrella issue for all financial companies’ issues

Whether it’s client or employee communication, it has to be straightforward, transparent, and efficient so as not to mess up finances. 

According to Pumble’s Workplace Communication Statistics in 2026, the estimated cost of poor communication at work ranges between $9,284 and over $30,000 per employee per year. 

Cornella paints a gloomy, yet accurate picture of the consequences of poor communication:

“Poor communication causes project scope creep, disagreements, and delays in billing. In turn, this moves your cash farther away from you. At the same time, the fixed costs remain, causing the owner to use their own funds to cover them.”

CAKE.com offers 3 tools as a unified solution to all of these problems

Our CAKE.com Suite is budget-friendly, yet super rich in efficient features, helping small business owners track their working hours, plan projects accurately, and efficiently communicate with their team through 3 tools: Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky. 

With Clockify, time tracking and billing stop being the things you dread. Knowing where your & your employees’ time goes during the workday makes it easy to notice the patterns you need to change to stop undercharging clients. 

With Pumble, you get effortless team communication, allowing you to speak with your remote employees as if they were in the room with you. We’ve made holding team meetings, giving presentations, or searching through message history incredibly easy and intuitive. 

With Plaky, managing projects becomes much more predictable. This is because you get a centralized workspace where all task-related magic happens. All of the files, updates, and communication are in a single location, available to those involved in the specific task.

These three tools are an efficient way to plan and execute your projects flawlessly, have an impeccable communication system, and successfully invoice your clients. You can get them individually, or as part of the CAKE.com Bundle, at a 53% discount. 

Watch this video to learn more about the tools.

Financial drains dissolve with the right tools

Small business owners are faced with making many decisions on a daily basis, and we know this can get overwhelming. That’s why simplifying the major aspects of your business, such as communication, project management, time tracking, and invoicing, is wise for your finances. 

When you’re properly handling these core elements, you’re not losing money or your time. And, your small business finances are just a few tools away from thriving.

How we reviewed this post: Our writers & editors monitor the posts and update them when new information becomes available, to keep them fresh and relevant.