COVID - Business Finance To Do List 3
On the previous posts I discussed getting organised and then making contact with all your suppliers/lenders to adjust all your 'normal' payment terms.
Now we need to look forward and see what impact that will have on your working capital requirement.
If you have a good accountant, they will be able to do this for you much quicker than you can. They have the skills, the apps/software and the experience to be able to create some reliable cashflows which you can use quickly, so you can get on with other things such as customer service, marketing and staff management. So consider using them from this point onwards.
Preparing cashflow forecasts can be very basic or very complicated. I suggest you do a detailed cashflow (line by line expenditure with specific payment dates) for a rolling 3 month period.
Cashflows need to be checked and adjusted as more becomes known, daily or even more often. They are living documents, don't do them once and put them away. They will be your roadmap for your business and with knowledge comes power, which will quell your anxiety and free your mind up to concentrate on other things you can control.
Software - you can use excel but this can be quite clunky. If have cloud accounting (xero, quickbooks etc) you can use one of these apps:
but remember your accountant should know how to use all of these apps, will know which is more appropriate for your business, and could do this much quicker than you (and they may also have more sophisticated/expensive software too, such as https://www.forecast5.com/)
Once you have prepared your cashflows, you can see where the gaps in working capital are and so the next post will be about how to find/access additional finance you may need.