There is no doubt that many businesses are going through challenges that seem insurmountable at the moment.
One report I recommend every business owner should look at is a 13 week rolling cashflow forecast.
This will give insights on the potential cash coming in, and cash going out of the business over the next few months. Importantly it will indicate where the gaps might be.
This report is a lot different to your profit and loss account/budget and I’ll run through the differences another time.
As new information comes to light, it should be updated and expanded out for another 13 weeks. And so on..
Where do I start?
You start with what you know – the current business costs that are fixed such as:
- Salaries
- Rent
- Subscriptions
- Loan repayments
- Tax liabilities
- Supplier payment plans
With sales, you could include projections based off your leads pipeline, orders made, monthly recurring sales, last month’s sales etc.
From there, look at previous periods and check if there is anything you missed and if so, ask yourself are they still relevant.
It’s better to be conservative – over estimate costs and under-estimate income.
Outcome
The data from the report will not be perfect and it’s not supposed to be. It just needs to be good enough so you can draw insights on potential issues looming down the road.
The insights will help you be decisive and allow you to act, giving your business every chance of meeting these challenges head on.
I will run through some options for businesses that are navigating a cash crisis over the next few weeks.
I can help
No one expects you to know how to build a 13 week rolling cash flow forecast or understand what it all means. This should not be your strength or the reason you went into business.
Please reach out to me for a highly confidential discussion. All you need to do is complete a few details below and let’s chat.