With the level of uncertainty out there over the past year, what have you done to check on your cashflow (apart from log into your online banking)?
This checklist can be used by you for your business to see all the options available to you to maintain a healthy cashflow in this difficult time.
You may be thinking about accessing one of the good cashflow software tools currently on the market, such as Fluidly. If you are thinking of this, please give us a call as we can help you get this set up correctly (we may also be able to give you a free or extended trial of the software).
If after you have used this checklist you realise you may need some help to maintain your cashflow then please give us a call, and we will talk through the options with you. We may be able to help you access a loan or even apply for grant funding.
CHECKLIST AS FOLLOWS:
- Our books are up-to-date so we have a true reflection of the amount we owe and what we are owed.
- We have contacted all the businesses which owe us money and agreed when they are going to pay us.
- We have calculated the cash survival time of our business, by dividing our cash in the bank by the average cost per day to run our business. To find your average cost per day to run your business take the cost of your overheads for the last 90 days and divide by 90. E.g. if we have £20,000 in the bank and a daily cost to run our business of £500, our cash survival time is 40 days. If this figure is under 30 days, please give us a call to talk through your options to increase your cashflow.
- We have reviewed the local authority and regional growth hub websites to see what the latest funding schemes have to offer.
- We have identified the amount of tax we owe for VAT/PAYE/Corporation tax and the dates they are due.
- We have reviewed our current overheads to identify:
- Anything we can cut because we are not using it or is not business critical? E.g. extra software licences or software we are no longer using but paying for.
- Which suppliers, if we needed, would give us more favourable terms to pay? Or a payment holiday?
- Which suppliers we could enter into a barter arrangement with?
- We have looked at our stock or assets to identify what we could sell or repurpose to sell to realise some cash quickly
- We have talked to identify opportunities to find new or different sources of revenue which we can do quickly at little or no cost to replace any lost income, e.g. taxi drivers becoming food delivery drivers
- We have looked at our wages to identify where would be the right sensible decisions to reduce these if needs be, e.g.
- Do we need to freeze recruitment?
- Could we talk to staff about a temporary pay cut? Reduced hours?
- Do we need to lay staff off on a permanent basis?
If you would like help to put together a cashflow forecast, please get in touch!
