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Author: Susie Kevern

Planning to avoid energy horror this winter?

Posted on by Susie Kevern

Do you have an energy strategy?

Even with the governments proposed interventions energy costs feel like they are spiralling out of control. Energy has been a relatively predictable cost over the last couple of decades, but as with Covid lockdown, uncertainty makes any sort of planning for the future seem risky. However planning is vital as this will have a big impact on cash flow planning.

While I was tidying out files last weekend and came across an articles that I had pulled out of CIMA’s members magazine in 2012. Energy costs were rising at that point, but the article seems ahead of it’s time now.

The positive thing about looking to reduce energy costs (and therefore usage) is that it also reduces your carbon footprint and improves future energy security.

1. Develop an energy saving strategy. Massive price rises make small steps like checking insulation, draught proofing and getting an energy performance review seem trivial. However these can also be relatively easy ways to start reducing energy usage, so make a good place to start. Furthermore, investing in building improvements will often qualify for tax savings.

2. Promote a change in staff behaviour. We are all aware of the current pressures of cost and the need to reduce carbon emissions. Welcoming and even offering rewards for ideas from your team for ways to improve energy efficiency gives everyone an opportunity to contribute

3. Look for quick wins: the same things that you’d do at home. Review your energy deals (that advice may not have aged well), turn the thermostat down a little, etc.

4. Monitor IT energy consumption. As we have transitioned to paperless offices and video conferencing we are using IT more and more. Staffordshire University studied their IT energy use and found that desktop monitors consumed 30% of their energy use while they were idle, and 40% outside of office hours. By encouraging users to turn off monitors when they were not needed they saved £65,000 per annum.

5. Install a smart meter (again, this may just frighten you more at the moment)

6. Use an energy management system. Similar to the principle of smart meters, detailed information about where energy is used allows targeted, informed action to reduce spend. Working to reduce the big energy usage slightly makes the impact far more noticeable.

7. Check efficiency of machinery. Whether this is IT, air con or machinery, everything works better when it’s regularly serviced. Compressed air leakage is often a huge (avoidable) source of energy waste in manufacturing companies.

8. Finally, because we’re accountants… manage the financials more effectively. Can you breakdown utilities by type, supplier, site? Getting better information about what’s driving spend to team leaders who can make changes allow them to act. Good data is essential to make good decisions.

In the current climate the article would probably have added “keep your fingers crossed” but taking action to combat the current price pressure and reduce future reliance on energy is much more effective.

Planning for successful business innovation

Posted on by Susie Kevern

Every business needs to innovate, to stay relevant to their customers and stay ahead of their competition. But successful innovation requires thorough planning and careful implementation. Financial planning is a key part of this.

Lets face it; it’s easier to come up with new ideas to grow your business than it is to implement them. Change is always necessary, but needs to be carefully planned to avoid destabilising the successful business that you’ve taken time to build.

A key part of the planning is what I think of as “Sequence and Cadence”. You could say that they’re the same thing, but bear with me – the difference is subtle.

For successful innovation you must plan to allocate enough time and resources to new projects to allow them to reach their logical conclusion (the cadence) but also balance the timing of competing projects so that they don’t drain your core business of the resources it needs to continue (sequence). A collection of half finished plans could be worse than no innovation at all!

Cadence

When you set out on something new; a product development, a new marketing campaign, etc, you have to commit sufficient staffing/ management/ capital/ investment/ time to give it a fair chance of succeeding. Even the most promising ideas struggle to reach their full potential if they’re starved of the necessary budget or attention. Each project is inherently different, so there’ can’t be a generic “one new development per quarter” approach.

In budgeting, and business planning in general, it’s vital that you recognise this and reflect it in the numbers. It’s also worth thinking about a “what if” analysis: what if progress has been slower than expected but you’ve come this far and giving up now would waste all the hard work – you just need a few more months (we’ve all been there…). When do you draw the line and move on to new opportunities?

Sequence

Sequence is about the bigger picture. It’s when there are multiple projects in progress but a limited amount of investment (time or money) to go around. If you spread your resources too thinly you could end up doing catastrophic damage to the whole business even if individual projects are growing nicely.

A resilient business model has to be grounded on profits and cash from established products and markets. New lines may promise great rewards, but the investment of time and resources that they require will take up cash and add to spending while they are establishing a niche.

This is especially true when the new sales involve customer credit. They can deliver new sales, but the cash doesn’t arrive in your bank account to pay for new marketing efforts until a month or two later.

Keeping an eye on the timing of expected spend and income from new projects is the sort of planning that is much easier with detailed budgets and cashflow plans. Information on how good that glittering opportunity actually is, in comparison to what you’ve already got, and highlighting where the pressure points may be gives you the chance to model how you could work out strategies to keep business running smoothly.

You can find out more about how I help businesses manage their finances here.

How much should you budget to spend on marketing?

Posted on by Susie Kevern

How do you keep control of marketing spend in a growing business? How much should your business be spending on marketing? Is it an investment in the future or just a cost?

Marketing spend is a difficult sell to accountants – there is no way of guaranteeing that it will deliver sufficient sales to cover the cost nevermind grow the business in the long run. It’s easy to argue this is frivolous spending, especially if times are tight.

But without marketing/ branding/ advertising activity there is a serious chance that sales won’t be maintained at a profitable level (or grow to get there) jeopardising the work that everyone else is doing. So yes, marketing is a necessary business investment.

So in the real world how much budget do you allocate to marketing; 2%? 5%? 10%?! and what’s the best way to spend it?

First, I would hark back to earlier posts about creating a cost conscious culture: everyone in the business can have an impact so good communication is vital. Take time to explain the goals to the team and show how they can play their part.

When the main budget is being constructed it’s not uncommon for marketing to be “given” a set amount of budget each month, regardless of future plans. This reflects the fact that ongoing marketing is essential, but wouldn’t it be better to look at the marketing plan and work out a cost of that?

Working in isolation risks creating plans that promise great things, both in terms of the budgeted profit and new prospects, but then fails to deliver. Setting out on to achieve goals when you know you can’t afford the resources that are needed is going to result in missed targets and it is easy to see this as a bad plan rather than a missed opportunity.

So how do you budget for a successful marketing effort?

Obviously it depends on what you want to achieve; doubling sales is likely to be much more demanding that maintaining current sales. But also it depends on the customers you’re trying to reach and the platforms you’re planning to use, so really there is no right answer!

So back to collaboration between the teams at the planning stage:

Focus on quality rather than quantity. That’s about reaching the right customers, and looking at specific activity rather than straight sales increases. Working on multiple fronts at the same time can be costly (and exhausting!) and there will be specific timescales for different offerings (advertising Christmas party bookings in January?).

The other key factor is that success depends on what you measure. It is important to understand what good results for your business will look like, so identify a return on investment at the outset. That doesn’t have to be in money terms (sales gained vs cash spent), why not look at other measures (views, enquiries, recognition, footfall) instead? Once you’ve identified your measure, you need to collect data to measure it – to review and work out if the expected results are being delivered.

As I’ve said before a budget should be a living document; constantly under review. When you’ve got some data, you can check the results against what you expected, and if necessary change the plan.

At this point you can update your forecast with better information to make see the implications of the changes to both profit and cashflow. This allows you to understand what you’re spending, remember why, and keep control of marketing spend in your business.

Creating a Cost Conscious Culture

Posted on by Susie Kevern

What’s the most effective way of controlling spending in your business? Previously I have talked about whether or not a budget is an effective tool to control spending and concluded that it’s not. A budget is a tool for building an overview of strategy and assessing potential changes, not for controlling behaviour.

I had originally been planning to post about Zero Based Budgeting. This is a planning process where every cost has to be examined and justified before being allowed into the budget. But personally I find this time consuming and really not that rewarding so it’s difficult to get enthusiastic about it!

So instead I’ve been thinking about how it’s stupid to hope that you can control spending behaviour with a policy. Take lockdown rules as an example: the Government could have just set out the rules and hoped that the population would obey, and probably had minimal success. Instead they have relentlessly evangelised about the why behind their policy – to include all of the potential “decision makers” in their vision.

In any business the same needs to happen to successfully achieve the objectives, whether they be brand building or cost cutting. So how might you go ahead making this happen?

You need to involve the whole team, whether they have spending power or not, to build a “cost conscious” culture.

Ultimately you could say this starts with hiring the right people who understand the responsibility of spending wisely, but in the shorter term what about setting out a framework for decision making:

  • Is this spend really necessary?
  • Does it provide good value for money, especially compared to a cheaper alternative?
  • Does this create value? That’s in terms of something the customer values, not just something we like!
  • Does this achieve the goals we are working towards? So a higher cost could be an acceptable trade off for recyclable supplies, reduced carbon emissions, etc.

Communicating this allows the whole team to play their part in making spending effective, which really helps people stay motivated in uncertain times.

Similarly, communicating with the team how the business makes profit and/ or generates cash enables everyone to focus on directing efforts to make more.

That could be focussing sales & marketing efforts on the right activities that deliver good quality leads. Or focussing on sales that bring in better profit margins.

But equally it could be focusing on selling to customers who pay on time. Or structuring deals so that the business is not paying for supplies now that customers will not pay for for several more months.

While spending can’t be controlled by capturing a number on paper in a budget, this highlights the importance of having good information about your business.

Knowing how profit margins compare between products and customers, how long customers actually take to pay and having a picture of the current financial performance allows you to assess the effects of changes.

You can’t always make the right decision because you can’t be certain about the future but you can make better decisions.

If you feel you need better financial information to help your business grow successfully then contact me for a free, confidential chat, or have a look at other advice I’ve published about making your budget more effective.

Budgeting for real life

Posted on by Susie Kevern

Budgeting for real life is a never ending challenge: most likely you’ll be wrong, the only uncertainty is by how much. But, as I’ve talked about before, it is an exercise worth persevering with.

An effective budget is a vital tool for building a successful business. Putting one together is no small task however it shouldn’t be viewed as a once a year job. In real life new opportunities or challenges rarely come along with perfect timing so that you get notice just before you create your budget.

Would you turn down a golden opportunity just because there was no spend allocated to it in your budget? That’s like saying would you pass up a sale because you’ve already hit your target?!

To manage a business effectively you need to stay flexible and reflect what’s going on in real life. If your budget is a work in progress then it can be an useful tool to refer to when you’ve got decisions to make. You can answer the “what if” questions and see how a single choice fits in to the bigger picture.

Numbers are good that way – word descriptions are subjective, but numbers (obviously chosen with care and consideration) give a more objective interpretation of the likely effects of a decision.

So how do you make this happen?

First, the key report you need is one that marries actual financial performance so far with the budget for the rest of the year. Then you need to keep updating it with both new actual results and amended forecasts that reflect your ever improving understanding of what the future holds.

Then, when a new opportunity crops up, there are two questions to ask:

1. How good is this opportunity?
Does it advance the business towards its strategic goals? Does it deliver profit and/ or additional cash? Does it deliver other non financial goals (reducing carbon emissions, improving resilience, etc)?

2. Do we have the necessary capacity?
This is both in terms of the financial capacity to invest in a new venture and capacity within the organisation to manage the workload that it will entail.

Available capacity changes as it is continually influenced by current performance so having a reliable, up to date picture of how the business is performing as the year goes along is crucial.

Maybe this sounds like a lot of work, but it’s what management accountants love! If you want to review how well financial planning works in your business then get in touch.

Better business budgeting: making a more effective plan

Posted on by Susie Kevern

Did you work out a budget for this year, as per normal? Have you thrown it out yet?!

It’s easy not to bother at the moment; the last few years have shown how little certainty we really have when we try to plan ahead and the last 12 months have made it clear that that’s not changing anytime soon.

So why bother with a budget?

In my experience making your own predictions of how sales and costs are going to pan out during the year gives you the background to make order out of chaos. What is the coming year likely to look like? What needs to happen to do to keep all those plates spinning and what power do you have to influence it?

Budgets were first developed in the early 20th Century as a way of keeping financial control on a business. The thinking was that analysis enabled business managers to control spending. But is a budget an effective tool to limit spending or grow sales? I think we would all agree that the 21st Century view is that it NO.

First of all, there are three distinct ideas wrapped up in a budget; strategy analysis, target setting and resource allocation, and that’s where I’d say the theory starts to fall apart. You can’t balance the best case outcome and the worst case outcome in one document without reaching a hopeless compromise.

Strategy Analysis
It’s easy to think of a budget as a plan for the year, but actually it’s more of a description, in numbers, of what you expect your plan to deliver.

Life very rarely goes to plan, but understanding what the world will look like if your business strategy plays out allows you to check you’ve got the right strategy. Will your growth plans deliver the anticipated results? Can you declare the dividends that you are expecting to pay?

A budget allows you to check you’re heading in the right direction.

Target setting
Targets are usually about sales, but regardless of subject a target is always something you want to achieve (or will be a challenge).

If a budget is going to be reliable you’re going to want to keep your sales figures realistic. But how motivating is a sales target that is safe and achievable?

While right at the moment keeping up with last year’s sales may be a challenge in itself, a good sales team will always be aiming for bigger and better.

Yes, the figure used in a budget needs to be “expected” sales, but target setting should be handled separately. There is no real compromise between achievable and motivating.

Resource Allocation
Overhead costs often feature in a budget as a consequence: an uncontrollable add on (or actually a deduction) from sales: staffing costs £x, marketing costs are the same as last year, the insurance cost has increased so something else has to be reduced to keep the balance.

This is not financial control!

First of all there will be interdependencies – controlling cost may mean you haven’t got the capacity to fulfil new sales orders, etc. So the staffing budget needs to be detailed and reflect the strategy.

Marketing spend, and lots of the other costs need to be planned and matched to specific activities (drivers) rather than just using last year’s figure, or a plain percentage of sales. Marketing in particular is a topic for another post, but my message is that this is the time to stop and think about how the bills added up last year and choose what you want to do this year, not simply repeat ad infinitum.

So effective budgeting needs to balance these three competing features. There are other ways that your budget can become more effective though:

Communication
With all of this planning it is important that creating a budget is always a two way process. This is another flaw in the original theory of budgeting. It’s easy for finance to pick a number and run with it, but the people who are talking to suppliers are the ones with the real information. A successful budget involves integrating the plans and barriers for all departments and decision makers.

Challenge
One of the problems with budgeting like this is that sometimes the budget will show a loss on the bottom line, which can be difficult to accept.

The reality of growing a business is that you continually invest in growth so there may not always be a rosy profit available. It’s important not to distort the predictions simply to make the budget look more reassuring. It takes action to change the numbers, it won’t work the other way round. This is where a cashflow forecast is important; in the short term profit is less important than cash and if previous investments are paying off there may be scope to stomach a loss this year.

Review
It’s easy to create a budget at the beginning of the year and leave it at that. But the real power of a budget is to compare real life to what you expected would happen, and work out what action you need to take as a result.

In addition to this there are no rules about how regularly you should review/ update it. It is worth keeping it up to date. If you started last year with monthly sales of £40,000 and in March half your customers closed for several months a comparison between budget and actual sales would not have told you anything about the effectiveness of your subsequent actions.

I like to review budgets at least quarterly to make sure the information is up to date, but its not unheard of to review them several times in a quarter as the facts change.

Good information is the key to making good decisions. Cash is always my first priority, but a well thought out budget is the source of the information you need to make your cashflow forecast and keep your business going, and growing successfully.

Look out for more blogs here talking about how budgets can make your business more effective, and if you would like help reviewing your current budget then get in touch.

How to plan for an unknown future?

Posted on by Susie Kevern

How can you plan for the future when you don’t know what it holds? Come to think of it: what do you not know about your business?

December is usually a busy month for business planning with my clients as we spend time looking at the next year in more detail. That tends to be true even when their year end isn’t December 31st – the change of calendar year is a good time for reflecting on progress and looking ahead to the future.

However 2020 has already been littered with new forecasts, re-forecasts, new opportunities and dashed hopes. We’ve pretty much exhausted all the options for revising the financial detail!

Instead, I’ve set aside time to think about, and crucially, document the things that we don’t know about the future.

We don’t know whether there will be more coronavirus disruption in the New Year, or the impact that a vaccine will have on the economy – can it stave off the predicted recession? We still don’t know what Brexit will throw at us, but we’re used to that by now!

But what about other risks?
What if one or several of your customers moved their business elsewhere? What if one went bust? How reliant are you on a particular customer? What’s the spread of business (and importantly profit) between customers? How much do they owe you?

Where* do you think the risks could be? (* you’re bound to be wrong here, but considering the risks is still valuable). What action can you take to get better information, or reassure yourself?

How about your suppliers? How quickly could you replace one if they hit problems? How close are your relationships with key suppliers? And while we’re on the subject do you have adequate back up if a staff member handed in their notice?

Do you have deposits or prepayments with suppliers that you depend? And what about directors loans? This is getting generic now, because every business is different but hopefully you see where I’m going.

While this isn’t a cheery, “season of goodwill” sort of message the point is that a relatively small amount of time working out what you perceive the risks that your business faces are will let you start to plan around them. You will bear them in mind when you make decisions, perhaps even subconsciously. And most importantly when the worries are on paper, not stuck in your head, you can sleep better at night.

So what did I find out about the businesses I work with?

Firstly, I find it’s always enlightening to look at all my clients together (in private of course). They are a diverse bunch: small and not so small businesses in different sectors.

However looking at the challenges in one can spark off ideas about the challenges in others and that’s one of the benefits of having an almost outside perspective on the business.

The risks that I identified initially were:

  • Unsurprisingly Brexit is still a big unknown (no prizes for guessing that)
  • Continued Covid disruption (don’t even mention the L word) will either be a bonus or a hindrance depending on sector
  • Reliance on key staff is a threat everywhere, which is true of any small business. That’ll result in more efforts to document and share information in the New Year; improving contingency plans especially where business owners are concerned
  • A bit of work needs done thinking about the reliance on certain key customers and what can be done to reduce the impact if they were to disappear
  • And in one business we need to monitor the levels of cash paid upfront to suppliers – cash that would be lost if that supplier was to cease trading

So plenty of work to be done in the New Year thinking about future proofing business, even while we don’t know what the future holds.

If you would like to take a look at where the risks may be in your business give me a shout; I’m always keen to help. You can find out more about how I help my clients here.

Practical advice for micro business

Posted on by Susie Kevern

It can be difficult to get practical advice for micro business, especially when you’re on a budget. 

In an effort to share good advice and help every business thrive despite the current restrictions the team at North Devon’s Business Action magazine has developed a “Business Activist” feature. I’m delighted to have been asked to chip in with some answers to readers’ questions regarding business finances, and so it makes sense to share that advice here too.

All of the advisers who have joined the team are happy to give general advice to businesses who contact them, so if there is a burning question that you’ve never found the right person to ask then you can call me, or email your question to ask@business-action.co.uk

Question 1 (Autumn 2020): Can my micro business benefit from automating our accounts?
It depends what you mean by automating. Usually this means adding programs to cloud accounts software (Xero, QuickBooks, etc) to save time processing bills and invoices; what’s not to love about that? But getting value for money and for the time you spend is crucial.

I like to keep things simple; your time costs money but in a startup/ micro business you will always be directly responsible for making sure all the bills get paid. Whatever you do it is vital that you know what’s likely to happen in the bank account. What bills do you need to pay and when do you expect customers to pay you?

So accurate records are most important. You can do this on a spreadsheet, especially if you are not VAT registered. Actually a simple spreadsheet can be the best tool even when you have an accounts system as well.

What you may not realise is that now most accounts software will automate a number of tasks for you. It can link directly to your bank, offering huge time savings on copying details from a statement as well as helping you keep track of which customers have paid. In addition to this you can set up repeating invoices, send customer statements and see summaries of outstanding bills as well as much more to save you time and help you stay on top of your finances.

This is usually enough for most micro businesses; good value for both the money and time involved.

Question 2 (December 2020): Should I register my business for VAT?

If your sales come to more than £85,000 in any 12 month period you must register for VAT. But if sales are less than this the answer is very specific to what kind of business you’re in:

  • Who are your customers? Business customers can reclaim VAT on their purchases so adding VAT to your sales will not make any difference to them. Consumers on the other hand cannot reclaim VAT so it will increase your price by 20%. This is often crucial to your profitability, especially if some of your competitors may not have to charge VAT.
  • What do you sell? VAT on essential items is charged at 0%. So if you sell food or drink (not hot food or alcoholic drinks), books, newspapers, childrens’ clothes and some other products VAT will make no difference to the price.
  • What do you buy? If you already pay VAT on your purchases you may be better off if you can reclaim VAT. If your costs are mostly wages then you may not be.

If you think registering for VAT is right for your business then really you need an accountant’s advice. Keeping good records is essential, along with making sure you know the deadlines for reporting and paying HMRC.

Question 3 (February 2021): Can preparing a budget revive enthusiasm in our business after being closed due to Coronavirus?”

This is a dreadful time everyone, but especially for businesses who are reliant on customer footfall for their sales. Sometimes it feels like the pandemic might never end. But it will end, and this is a the perfect time to make plans for what you want your business to look like when it does.

In the short term it’s vital that you keep on top of bills that are due and make sure you have enough money in the bank. A budget is a great tool for that forward planning and gives you the information you need to make proactive decisions and have up front discussions with landlords and suppliers so you stay in control.

There’s more to it though; creating a budget and planning a vision for the future can be uplifting. It takes your attention away from current problems and focuses you on the future.

While you’re closed you have an opportunity to think about what you really want from your business; is what you’ve got now the business that you dreamt of? Would you make changes? What would it take to make this happen?

The future may seem a long way off right now, but this is a perfect time to plan.

Question 4: (April 2021): A roundup of questions about giving credit to customers

When you’re selling to another business they often expect not to have to pay straightaway. But allowing customers credit has a cost and can be a risk to your business, so what should you think about before you go ahead?

Q: Do I have to offer customers credit? No! It’s important to understand what works for you, not just what you think is expected. A cashflow forecast is essential here, it will help you see the impact of delays in getting paid.

Q: What about discounts? Some firms offer a small discount for prompt payment. If you include the cost of offering credit in your prices you can afford to give something away for quicker payment. It’s also worth remembering that some customers prefer a direct debit option as this reduces their admin burden while giving you more security.

Q: I’m worried if I don’t get paid now I might not get paid at all! You need to work out how much credit you feel comfortable giving. The best plan is to start small and look to build a relationship:
* make sure you have all the details you need for new customers: the right names and phone numbers
* ask for references from current suppliers and make sure you follow them up
* keep your book keeping up to date so that you know how much you are owed
* send statements and reminders BEFORE the payment is due
Most importantly speak to your customers regularly; check they have your invoices and know when they are due.

Handled well, offering credit can help you grow your business. But make sure you operate good credit control: a friendly phone call doesn’t cause offence and can build valuable business connections.

There’ll be more answers coming soon, but if you have a question of your own then you can contact me or email it to ask@business-action.co.uk

Find out more about how I help businesses here

Your guide to creating a cashflow forecast

Posted on by Susie Kevern

I spend a lot of time talking about cashflow, but how do you create a cashflow forecast for yourself? Where do you get the information from? What does it mean!

Here’s my guide to creating a worthwhile cashflow forecast for your business: How To Start Your Cashflow Forecast

It often feels difficult to forecast more than just a couple of months ahead: it starts to need a lot of assumptions which can make the exercise seem risky or even pointless.

However a good forecast that looks out over at least the next year will show up any risks you may potentially face in the future as you implement your business strategy. For example, if sales increase will you have enough cash to keep up to date with VAT payments? Do you need to be setting aside cash to pay your tax bill, which can seem a long way off.

This is especially important if you are thinking of taking on additional borrowing. Bank’s always ask for a cashflow forecast as part of an application; it’s not just a “box ticking” exercise it is a vital part of making sure you can afford the repayments!

This guide takes you through:

  • What duration and level of detail you need to consider
  • what to include in your forecast and where to find the figures
  • some of the difficult areas, such as forecasting VAT and tax
  • Some ideas of business issues to think about along the way

 

The most important part of the forecasting process is actually what you do with it once you’re finished. Do you need to find ways of plugging a leak in your cashflow, should you be borrowing to support new business growth, or should you be investing in the future?

With reliable information to hand you can make the right decisions to move your business forward.

Avoid second lockdown cashflow crisis

Posted on by Susie Kevern

Does a second lockdown mean cashflow crisis for your business? What can you do to avoid it?

We know that a lot more businesses are allowed to stay open this time than were able to in March, but staying open is not necessarily a good outcome. A lot of SMEs have used up what little cash reserves they had and are facing a tough winter.

Recent surveys have shown that 33% of SMEs think they will be impacted worse by this second lockdown and 20% are predicted to not make it through.

So what can you do to help your business avoid a second lockdown cashflow crisis?

Unfortunately I don’t have any miracle cure but the things that I have seen working to help businesses are:

  • Make sure you have an up to date cashflow forecast and try to make a list of the assumptions that you’ve made in it – how much, how often, what credit, is it realistic?
  • Look out for opportunities to cut costs; insurance may be getting more expensive at the moment but energy costs and interest rates have fallen. There are also grants available for investing in energy efficiency measures which may pay off in the future.
  • There are new extensions to both the bounce back and CBILS loans which may support your cashflow even if you have already used the facilities on offer.
  • You can “top up” an existing Bounce Back loan to reflect your new circumstances or use the government backing to add invoice financing or maybe an overdraft facility to an existing CBILS loan.
  • In addition to this the repayments can now be spread over 10 years which reduces the cashflow effects significantly. You can find my earlier advice on applying for CBILS support in this post.

The most important thing to do is to make sure you have accurate, up to date information to base decisions on: knowledge really is power here.  And check out my checklist for adapting your cashflow forecast for lockdown II to make sure you have a picture of the future that you can rely on.