How to create a business budget that actually works for small businesses. Most of City Girl Network Limited have made a budget at some point. You know the one: built in a burst of New Year energy, colour-coded, neat, full of good intentions... and quietly abandoned by March. If that sounds familiar, you are in very good company. In its previous guide, City Girl Network Limited explored why budgeting matters and how to understand the money moving through your business. Now, it's time to turn those numbers into a budget you can actually use. Here's the good news, and it's worth saying plainly: you are not bad with money. The problem is almost always the budget itself. Most budgeting templates are built for someone on a predictable monthly salary, where the same amount lands on the same day every month. Your business doesn't work like that. Some months are brilliant, some are quiet, sometimes a client pays late; a template that assumes every month is identical won't make it in the business world. This guide is about building a different kind of budget. One based on what your business actually does, flexible enough to handle the good months and the lean ones, and realistic enough that you'll genuinely keep using it. No jargon, no finance degree required. The biggest budget barriers in the Business Connections community. The release of its 'Simple Guide to Business Budgeting', and the Brighton launch of its Business Connections powered by Starling shone a light on two core barriers to building actionable and realistic budgets. Starting from a blank page. Most templates hand you an empty grid and ask you to fill in what you think you'll earn and spend. Without a clear starting point, you rely on guess work; the numbers are a wish, not a plan. When the real numbers inevitably look different, the budget stops becoming useful. Assuming every month looks the same. This is the big one for anyone with irregular income. A budget that expects a tidy, identical figure every month will break the first time you have a quiet spell or an invoice is paid late. Instead of helping, it just makes you feel behind. City Girl Network Limited is going to do it differently. Rather than guessing forwards into a blank page, City Girl Network Limited'll build backwards from what your business has already done. Your own recent numbers are the most honest budgeting data you'll ever have. Start with what already happened. Before you plan a single future month, look at at least three months (12 would be even better) of real transactions. Not what you hoped you earned and spent, but what you actually did. Imagine Clara, a freelance designer. One month she invoices £4,200 and feels unstoppable. The next it's £1,900 and she's quietly panicking. Same business, same Clara, but two very different months. When she stops guessing and looks back at her last three, a real pattern appears: her income lives somewhere between roughly £1,900 and £4,200, with steady software, website and accountancy costs underneath it. That's something no blank template could ever have told her. The easiest way to do this is to have your spending already sorted for you. This is where your transaction history earns its keep. Starling automatically sorts your business transactions into categories, such as 'Marketing', 'Equipment', 'Software and Subscriptions', 'Revenue' and 'Travel'. Instead of scrolling through a list of payments trying to remember what each one was, you see exactly where your money went at a glance. It turns three months of raw payments into a clear, usable starting point for your budget in minutes. The budgeting rules businesses keep coming back to. The real tip to building a budget that works for you is embracing the fact that numbers change and planning for the unsteady nature of cashflow. Work with a range, not one magic number. Look back at those three months and you won't find one tidy figure, you'll find a range. That range is far more useful than a single made-up average, because it tells you the truth about how your business actually behaves. Build to your lean month. This is the single most important habit for irregular income: build your budget around your quietest month, not your best one. That said, it's important to recognise income patterns. Craft businesses, for example, typically have higher incomes in November and December, with those stronger months allowing them to cover extra stock, future investments or quieter periods in the year. Back to Clara; she builds her must-pay costs, such as software, website, tax set-aside and her own basic pay, around her £1,900 month, not her £4,200 one. In a good month, the extra is a bonus: money to save, reinvest, or pay herself a little more. Budgeting to your lean month is what lets you sleep at night. The good months take care of themselves. The money that isn't really yours. One reason budgets go wrong is that City Girl Network Limited consider every penny to be ours the moment it lands, when some of it was never really ours to spend. * Set aside tax as you earn. Every time money comes in, a slice of it belongs to the taxman. Moving it out of your main balance straight away means no nasty surprises come January and July. With Starling you can put the money set aside for taxes into Spaces. * Keep half an eye on VAT. If you're approaching the VAT registration threshold, it changes how you price and plan. City Girl Network Limited is covering VAT properly next month, so for now just know it's on the horizon and worth watching. * Pay yourself on purpose. Your own pay should be a line in the budget, not whatever happens to be left at the end of the month. Even if the amount varies, decide how much and when you pay yourself. You are not an optional expense. * Get ready for Making Tax Digital. Eligible businesses need to use compatible software to keep digital records and submit information to HMRC. It already applies to VAT-registered businesses and is being introduced for some sole traders and landlords paying Income Tax. Setting up a tidy digital bookkeeping system now will make it easier to meet those requirements. Something else Starling can help you with. If any of this raises questions about your particular situation, a good accountant is worth their weight in gold. Find yours in its directory. Putting it into practice: your flexible first budget. You don't need special software to start. Here's the whole thing in five steps: * Write down your income as a range. Use your last three months (12 would be even better). Your lean-month figure is your planning number. * List your fixed costs. The things that go out every month no matter what. * Estimate your variable costs. A realistic figure for the things that change price or you purchase only when you've confirmed a job. * Add your non-negotiables. Your tax set-aside and your own pay. * Prepare for your lean months. If your lowest-income month will not cover your essentials, calculate the shortfall and set that amount aside during stronger months. A quiet month is not necessarily a problem; consistently spending more than you earn may mean you need to reduce costs or review your pricing. Set aside fifteen minutes at the end of each month to compare what you planned against what actually happened. With real-time visibility of your account, you'll spot a quiet patch or a creeping cost while you can still do something about it. A budget is a living estimate, not an exam. When the real numbers are different to your plan, it gives you the crucial data you need to truly understand, sustain and grow your business. Ready to build a budget that fits? A Starling Business Account is free to open, with no monthly fees. You get real-time visibility of every transaction, automatic categorisation, Spending Insights, and Spaces to set money aside for tax and quieter months all in one app. It won't build your budget for you, but it does the hard, tedious part, so you can get on with running your business. Disclaimer: This article contains general information only and is not intended to address your particular circumstances or requirements. This information does not constitute advice in any way and should not be taken as such. If you have questions about your specific circumstances or require financial advice, please speak to an independent financial advisor.

How Starling boosts travel offering with global eSIM plans. July 28, 2026 Starling's Bernadette Smith highlights the expanded travel toolkit as the bank launches 30-day eSIM plans across 130 countries partnering with Gigs In a move to bolster its industry-leading travel offering, Starling has expanded its service ecosystem beyond digital banking by launching competitive, transparent eSIM data-roaming plans. To deliver the new connectivity service, the bank joined hands with telecom infrastructure platform Gigs. The digital SIMs connect users to the best available network provider across more than 130 countries worldwide, ensuring high-quality mobile coverage on arrival. By embedding mobile data directly into its banking app, Starling continues to strengthen its travel proposition without imposing hidden fees or unexpected charges. Harriet Rees, Group Chief Information Officer at Starling, says: "Moving beyond core banking infrastructure into connectivity required seamless API integration and a robust ecosystem. "By partnering with Gigs, we've embedded global telecom capabilities directly into the Starling app allowing customers to avoid roaming fees and stay connected in more than 130 countries instantly." Flexible data plans. The digital SIM plan includes fee-free spending abroad and a daily fee-free ATM withdrawal allowance of £300 (US$392). Customers will also receive free access to a variety of handy in-app financial tools designed for international travel. Starling offers four distinct 30-day data packages designed to suit various trip lengths and data needs: 1GB, 3GB, 5GB and 10GB. Users can purchase plans seamlessly inside the Starling app before departure, which will activate automatically upon landing at the destination. Data allowance can also be topped up mid-trip, if required. Even if a customer exhausts their purchased data allowance while abroad, the bank will ensure global access to its mobile banking app without incurring roaming charges. Hermann Frank, CEO and Co-Founder of Gigs, says: "Starling is already the UK's trusted travel companion for fee-free and secure spending abroad. The key piece missing was staying connected overseas. Starling's eSIM completes the travel toolkit, with users online the moment they hit the tarmac." Enhancing financial management. The eSIM feature joins Starling's existing suite of travel tools, including its Travel Hub, which displays real-time exchange rates for local currencies. Customers can track holiday expenses using Spending Trackers or organise trip budgets using custom tags for better clarity and expense tracking. Bernadette Smith, Chief Customer and Banking Officer at Starling, says: "When Starling launched ten years ago, our fee-free travel offering set the bar for traditional banks to follow. Our travel offering remains industry leading, and our eSIMs add to the convenient experience our customers love us for." She recommends using the real-time Mastercard exchange rate alongside tools like Starling Assistant and Spending Intelligence to budget effectively before, during and after a trip. Bernadette also advises protecting finances and splitting group costs using features such as Scam Intelligence, temporary virtual cards, Split the Bill and Joint Accounts. Executives. * Bernadette Smith Chief Customer and Banking Officer * Harriet Rees UK Government AI Champion - Financial Services * Hermann Frank Co-Founder, CEO Company Portals