Even if you have great products and services, that’s no guarantee for business success. Unless you have excellent cash flow, you’ll eventually run into a situation that causes you to shut down your business. Unfortunately, cash flow is one of the biggest challenges small businesses face.
Cash flow management can be challenging for businesses of all sizes, but there are a few things you can do to help. Keep reading to learn four common issues with cash flow and how to avoid the problems in the first place.
- Not Keeping Cash Reserves
Cash reserves are critical in business, but not every company keeps them. All profit gets reinvested in growth. While this may work great much of the time, it can backfire when you least expect it.
What happens when you incur an unexpected expense and can’t pay? You end up with expensive debt or the inability to handle business. Keep cash in the bank to stop this from ever happening.
- Not Tracking Sales Volume
Your sales will be predictable most of the time. You can easily use cash flow forecast models to see how much income you have coming in and how much you can expect to buy in inventory. However, unexpected times of growth will go against the standard models.
However, you can use current trends and other statistics to avoid poor stock management strategies. Run as many reports as possible on your company’s sales volume and how many similar products are selling in the industry. When you do, you can order enough products to meet unexpected demand and not spend your cash reserves to keep up.
- Not Recording Small Purchases
Many companies make the mistake of not tracking unimportant purchases. It’s easy to track recurring and large expenses, but smaller items like office supplies and company lunches don’t seem to matter as much.
The problem is that this spending can get out of control if you don’t know about it. Put a business spend management strategy in place to track those purchases and control every aspect of your business spending.
- Not Having Financing
Even if you have excellent cash flow, there will be times when it isn’t enough. You may be able to keep the lights on, but you can’t always take advantage of opportunities that need more cash.
Financing is what those situations are for. You can apply for financing through loans or lines of credit to gain access to cash before you need to use it. Access to this money will help you take advantage of growth opportunities and grow your business faster without compromising cash flow.
Just be careful if you have poor credit control in this situation. You don’t want to use this money unless you need it, and avoid using it for emergency situations.
Now You’re Ready to Handle Cash Flow Management With Ease
With how important cash flow management is for business, you can’t afford to fall victim to the common mistakes. If you don’t create a strategy to keep things under control, there’s no telling when a mishap will cause problems for your company. Avoid the common mistakes below to keep your cash reserve high and prepared for the future.
Check out the blog to read more financial tips that will help your company thrive in the future.