Neil Driver shares his advice in the lead up to the holidays. Is your business prepared for the slowdown and do you have enough cash on hand?
If you need help the Chartered Certified expert team at Davis Grant are here to help.
Transcript
With the end-of-the-year fast approaching and the seasonal slowdown on its way I just wanted to give a heads up in relation to cash flow planning around this time.
Sales tends to be in a different rhythm this time of year and it can have an impact on your cash flow sometimes positively but often it means that you’ve got more planning to put in place to make sure that the wheels of the business continue to move.
Suppliers still chase for money as they want to clear their books before the end of the year and it can be sometimes difficult to juggle everything together with paying wages and overheads.
So what I suggest you do is actually take some time to have a look at your cash flow over the next few weeks and into January. Look at your aged debtors or receivables and your age creditors and payables. Make sure they’re up to date – if they’re not up to date then that’s a different issue about the the accuracy and timeliness of your accounts and key information (but that’s for another time)
Run through that, see what money’s going to come in see what money’s going to go out and plan it through. Check you’ve got enough money in the bank or facilities and make plans if you’re going to be running short it’s always better to ask for further funds in advance of when you need them. There’s less pressure on the banks and when there’s more time to do it you will get a better rate.
So even though there’s still two or three weeks to go it’s best to take action on this now. When you look at the figures if it turns out you do need more finance often the first place is your bank but it’s difficult to compare rates.
Here at Davis Grant we’ve got access to a funding platform that cuts across one hundred hundred and twenty different lenders and we’d be more than happy to see what we can do for you. Some of the lending can be quite innovative and really isn’t what’s on offer in the high street.
So that’s my advice, take action now check out your cash flow over the next few months through December and January and make sure that you’ve really got all the finance you need in place.