Ways for businesses to keep a positive Cash Flow During
COVID-19
One of the most important ways to keep your business healthy
is to ensure positive cash flow. Under normal circumstances, this is not a
problem, but due to the Corona crisis, it has become harder for businesses to
maintain positive cash flow. For this reason, we have listed 6 ways to make
sure there’s more cash coming in than going out.
Before we go down the list, we advise you to take a good
look at, or make, your business’ general overview of cash outflow and
overheads. On that basis, you can determine if you really need those costs or
if you need to negotiate on, for instance, better utility, (cell)phone or
internet deals, or better deals with suppliers. Only by taking a good look at
your business expenses, you can determine where there are opportunities to
improve cash flow.
1. Avoid big discounts
When sales go down, it’s easy to try and ‘solve’ the problem
by offering big discounts and hope that sales go up. However, a generous
discount doesn’t guarantee that sales will go up – certainly not in a crisis.
What it does guarantee, is that profit will go down, which in turn will affect
your cash flow negatively. On the other hand: what you could do to positively
affect cash flow, is offer a small discount to clients willing to pay
immediately instead, or to clients that are thinking of buying a bigger amount
of your product or service.
2. Stay on top of receivables
How many outstanding accounts does your company or
organisation have? And what is their total value? Chances are that it’s quite a
large amount, which is bad for cash flow since it represents money that’s
unavailable to you. So, to maintain positive cash flow, you should always
manage your receivables closely and put some extra effort into keeping the
amount of overdue money as small as possible. Especially during a crisis, every
penny is worth the effort.
Especially during a crisis, every penny is worth the effort
3. Use technology to track cash flow
Staying on top of and keeping track of your business’ cash
flow is key in maintaining positive cash flow. There are several ways to do
this, but we advise you to use accounting software that’s specifically designed
to track cash flow. In most cases, this kind of technology also offers
real-time insights that’ll help you with budgeting and managing cash flow, as
well as keeping an accurate account of what is coming in and going out, expected
and projected cash flow, et cetera. In short: investing in the right software
allows you to maintain positive cash flow.
4. Get customers to pay faster
Staying on top of and keeping track of your business’ cash
flow is key in maintaining positive cash flow. There are several ways to do
this, but we advise you to use accounting software that’s specifically designed
to track cash flow. In most cases, this kind of technology also offers
real-time insights that’ll help you with budgeting and managing cash flow, as
well as keeping an accurate account of what is coming in and going out,
expected and projected cash flow, et cetera. In short: investing in the right
software allows you to maintain positive cash flow.
The goal is to make your monthly cash flow as smooth as
possible
5. Negotiate terms with vendors and suppliers
Most businesses focus on keeping accounts receivable as low
as possible, but what about maximising the potential of your accounts payable?
Especially when you’re not the only business facing a crisis, it can be good to
negotiate more advantageous terms or pricing with your vendors and suppliers to
improve cash flow. There are several things you can do, like negotiate invoice
terms, spread out accounts payable by matching payments to deliverables, or
create appropriate terms that sync up with accounts receivable. The goal is to
make your monthly cash flow as smooth as possible.
6. Invoice financing
If staying on top of receivables (tip 2) doesn’t pay out,
you could consider financing invoices. In that case, a financial services
provider pays you the amount per outstanding invoice in advance, so you don’t
have to wait on the debtor’s payment. Of course, there are fees to consider,
but nevertheless, staying away from cash flow problems and sleepless nights
should be worth something.
In the UK almost half of all invoices are paid late, causing
businesses cash flow problems
Government support to maintain positive cash flow
Due to coronavirus, the UK government has decided to help businesses manage their
cash flow by offering the option to defer all VAT payments (without charging
interest or penalties) due between 20 March 2020 and 30 June 2020.
Direct Debits
If you choose to defer your VAT payment as a result of coronavirus, you should
cancel your Direct Debit through your bank as soon as possible so that HMRC
will not automatically collect any VAT due. You can cancel online if you’re
registered for online banking.
More info
Note: Because of the Coronacrisis, financial support from
the government is available to businesses. Do keep in mind that this isn’t
always a gift, so you should put aside money to be able to refund it in the
future.
