5 Ways to Improve your Cash Flow

In our last blog, we discussed ways of managing your cash flow. We know that cash is the lifeblood of any business, so here are 5 more tips to help you improve your cash flow.

 If the cash dries up, problems quickly begin to multiply. By keeping the cash running freely and you can continue to grow your business.

Here are five tips for improving your cash flow:

1. Have a system to manage your debtors. 

Come up with a clear, step-by-step way to handle outstanding accounts. This might include:

• automated reminders on unpaid emails
• a phone call or email when the amount has been outstanding for a certain period of time
• a stop credit on the client when they exceed an acceptable payment time.

2. Be prepared for tax time 

One of the fastest ways to run out of cash is to find yourself short at tax time. Talk to your accountant about tax planning measures you can implement to ensure you can make your compliance and tax obligations. 

3. Try not to dip into business funds for personal spending

It’s always tempting to tap your business account for personal spending. Instead, try to keep them separate. If you’ve over-saved at the end of the tax year, you may be able to draw down a nice bonus. That’s much better than being caught short.

4. Sell old stock

Too much stock? Consider old stock, old furniture, machinery or even stationery: they can all be sold to free up space and provide a small cash injection.

5. Forecast your cash flow

Create a cash flow forecast (we can do this with you) and that will help you monitor and measure the flow of cash in and out of the business.

Need help with forecasting or cash flow management? We’re here for you. Feel free to get in touch.

Accessing Business Funding

Cash is the fuel that powers your business. But, does your business have enough capital in your company to actually fund your short, medium and longer-term goals?

Whatever your business aims are, you’re likely to need some additional finance at some point along the business journey. But, how does this extra cash then benefit the growth, scaling up and (eventually) the sale value of your business?

The value of extra capital in the business

Third-party business finance comes in many forms.

It might mean talking to your bank about agreeing an overdraft extension, or taking out a business loan from a business funding provider. It may even mean looking at specialist finance products, such as:

• asset finance (for buying new equipment)
• invoice financing (for quickly raising cash from your outstanding invoices)
• government-backed grants and tax incentives for enterprising businesses.

Whatever finance route you take, it’s important to understand the impact that this extra capital will have for your business. And for your longer-term success.

Accessing business funding

Accessing business funding provides a number of opportunities for your business.

Boosts your working capital

Funding gives you the liquid cash needed to stabilise and expand your operations.

With enhanced working capital, you can overcome your post-pandemic cash worries and get your balance sheet looking healthy once again.

You can also take on new work, projects and customers, safe in the knowledge that you can cover the initial expenditure while waiting for new revenue streams to bear fruit.

Provides investment in your growth strategy

If you’re looking to expand your operations or scale up the business, extra funding gives you the capital to invest in this growth.

You have the capital to take on more people, to invest in equipment, plant and new technology, and to scale up the overall capacity of your business.

Strengthens your company's balance sheet

The health of your balance sheet is determined by the balance between your assets (the things you own, including cash, within the business) and your liabilities (the debts that you owe other people).

Additional funding in your business helps to:

• increase your assets, which, in turn, helps to boost your working capital and liquid cash
• enhance your asset performance
• improve your capitalisation structure as a viable business.

Makes your company more valuable

With more cash in the bank and more capital to draw on, your company becomes a more valuable, and a more attractive proposition in the marketplace.

This healthy financial position is invaluable when approaching lenders for more funding, when buying out a competitor or even when selling the business and bringing your exit strategy into play as the owner.

However, if you’ve taken on private investors to provide part of your funding, you do have to consider that these investors will likely now own shares in the business – limiting your overall ownership and control of the company.

Whatever the next stage is for your business, the journey will be easier with a robust, tailored funding strategy behind your business plan.

Talk to us about creating a tailored funding strategy

Should I focus on profits or cash flow?

Turning a profit is at the heart of running any successful company. But should profits be the only financial focus if you're looking to create a stable, long-term business?

Cash flow is the beating heart of your business. Without an even and predictable flow of cash into the company, you can't cover your overheads, you can't pay your employees and you can't run your day-to-day operations – let alone think about expanding and growing the business.

So, what’s needed is a healthy cash flow position AND a good focus on driving profits.

Keeping on top of the financial management of your business can be hard work, especially if you’re new to accounting and the technical terms that are used to talk about money.

Understanding your finances

But if you’re going to be in control of your financial destiny, it’s important to get your head around the important process of cash flow management. This is especially true in the current business landscape, where sales revenue may be less buoyant, cash can be tight and the market is going through a challenging time.

Let’s look at some of the key things to understand about your finances:

Profit is a by-product of a successful business

As the owner, you want to make profits, but profitability isn’t the only goal. A business can easily be profitable, but also be highly unstable in the longer term. What you want is stability and consistent revenues.

Cash flow is the blood that keeps your business alive

Good revenues (income) serve to bring cash into the business. Without cash to cover your operating expenses, you have no means to keep the lights on in the business. So cash really is king!

Know your cost base and overheads

The flipside of your cash flow position is your costs. In an ideal world, you want more cash inflows than cash outflows, so it’s important to know your expenses and costs and to manage them carefully.

Be proactive about spend management and easing expenditure

If you can take action that reduces your spending, that is hugely positive for your cash flow position. Choose cheaper suppliers, negotiate better deals and bring that cost base down.

Drive more revenue, through increased sales and marketing activity

If you can increase your revenues, you also boost your cash flow. So it’s important to be proactive about running targeted sales and marketing campaigns to increase your sales.

Keep the cash flowing and the profits take care of themselves

If you achieve the ideal cash flow position, the company sits on solid financial foundations, the cash is there for investment and the business can grow. It’s that simple.

Talk to us about improving your cash flow management

Whether you’re new to running a business, or a seasoned owner who needs some financial support, we can give you the cash flow advice you need.

We’ll review your finances, delve down into your cash flow and will come up with key ways for you to increase your cash income and reduce your cash expenses. It only takes a few small changes to achieve a far better cash flow position for your business – helping you maintain positive cash flow AND generate meaningful profits.

Get in touch to talk through your cash flow concerns.

Setting Sales Targets

Setting sales targets for your business is standard practice for any aspirational, growing company. If you’re going to stretch the sales and marketing teams, it’s important to have clear, unambiguous targets for them to aim for.

Setting sales targets in uncertain times

In uncertain times it’s more than likely that your established sales targets will effectively become unrealistic and impractical for your teams to use.

So, how do you set sales targets when the world has changed? 

And how can you ensure these targets are meaningful, accurate and workable for your business goals?

Understanding your strategy and sales numbers

Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to defining your business strategy during uncertain times. The better you understand your position, the easier it will be to agree on the right strategy and to set sales targets that support these aims.

With a plan in place and targets to meet, everyone knows what they need to achieve. A list of key tasks to do at each point along the sales journey adds real value. Even if you don't end up gaining new business, you’ve made every effort to solve the customer's needs.

Important steps for setting sales targets:

Understand your turnover and profit goals.

Do you know how many sales to make if you’re going to break even, or want to actually make money? 

Understanding your gross margin, your break-even point and your desired profit margin helps you calculate how many sales will be needed to achieve this profit goal.

Bear in mind, of course, that your sales will, most likely, be down during uncertain times. And work this into your figures and targets.

Make your targets SMART

If you set sales targets then these numbers have to be Smart (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely).

Break them down into achievable goals, such as weekly or monthly targets, and track your actual sales over time. That way you can see how you’re performing against your sales target. 

Look at regular performance reports and make these part of your regular management meetings. Discuss how you’re tracking and what action you can take if you’re not hitting your desired targets.

Track other sales elements

It’s also worth considering what other elements of the sales process you can measure, to get a handle on how you’re doing as a business. Track things like calls/enquiries, visits to your home page, trials, bookings or customer demos.

Analyse what drove these enquiries or visits, so you understand where things worked well and can do more of the same.

Run forecasts and scenarios

Use your tracking data to project your sales position forward in time. Base your projections on the historic information you have available and the other drivers you’ve identified. 

Run different scenarios. For example, 75% sales based on prior year numbers, 50% sales and 25% sales. And see how you’d need to tweak your sales targets to account for these drops in sales activity.

Fill the information gaps

Are there any gaps you could fill to get a better understanding of the market and your customers?

A proactive effort to make more follow-up calls with existing customers can be incredibly informative.

Running a customer feedback survey can also help to gauge where the sales process works well, where you could do better and what their future buying intentions might be over the coming months of the crisis.

Talk to us about your sales targeting process.

If you are seeking advice on business Apps, we specialise in understanding the different options for different industries and businesses. We provide you with insights and guidance on what Apps would best suit your business.

Or, if you're interested in any of these measures contact us to discuss how we can help you become more strategic, resilient, and in control.

Talk to us about how we can help you make better business decisions.

With cloud accounting software, such as Xero, simplifying much of the bookkeeping process, you now have greater accuracy over business numbers with less effort and time.

Yet, there is still one point of weakness.

Your data.

Data is often still manually entered. And if your data has errors, is missing information or is out-of-date, your results will reflect that.

Remember the saying “garbage in, garbage out”.

And that’s not a good thing when it comes to your business. Especially when it comes to forecasting.
When making decisions about the future of your business, getting the full picture is essential. And that means you need clean and accurate data.

When you have accurate forecasts, you can say goodbye to surprises and take better control of your business.
Businesses who consistently make errors with their data and base decisions upon incomplete data often end up in a cash flow crises. And more often than not, realise they’re about to run out of cash when it's too late to respond.

There is a direct line between accurate, up-to-date data and making better decisions for your business.

One way to improve your data accuracy is by automating as many points in your bookkeeping process as possible. 

Using apps that integrate with Xero, such as ReceiptBank and Futrli, makes it easier to get the right information you need to make the best decisions for your business.

Using Receipt Bank makes it easy to photograph snap your receipts with your phone and extract the information your accounting system needs.

No longer do you have to file away physical copies as your information and a copy of the receipt is stored in the cloud.

Receipt Bank then “talks” to your accounting software, for example Xero, and uploads your receipts.

Your information is available in your accounts system ready to be reconciled by your bookkeeper. And then Futrli uses that information to report in, predominantly, graphic form. And most importantly, provide the ability to set budgets and forecast. 

Talk to us about how Receiptbank, Futrli, and Xero can help make better business decisions.