Hopefully, by now you are at an advanced stage with the Government measures that are already available to you. Existing options include:
Whilst the measures are useful for cash preservation and should help your business trade through the next 3-6 months, it’s important to start thinking about what your business might look like after that.
There are a lot of unknowns in the current climate, but good cash flow modelling allows you to ask ‘what if’ questions. For example, you might want to see what your cash flow looks like if turnover drops by X% or customers pay 30 days later than usual. You can model various assumptions alongside likely changes to government policy such as:
- The furlough scheme may have finished, so staff will be returning to work, but if your trade has dropped off you might still need to make staff redundant which can be costly;
- There might be rent catch up that’s needed once the Government support and protections against landlords evicting commercial tenants are removed;
- There will be tax payments that have been deferred that will need to be paid;
- There will be suppliers that you’ve agreed payment terms with that will need to be caught up with.
It’s crucial to have a flexible cash flow model to work with to adapt over time during this climate whilst keeping one eye on the long term impact on your business and how you might manage it.
There are lots of measures we can help you take to reduce the medium-term problems whilst also keeping a tight grip on cash. Even before COVID-19, producing management accounts and cash flow forecasts for our clients was a big part of our business. All of our teams are trained and on hand to help you stay on top of your cash both in the short and medium-term, so you can concentrate on getting your business going again when the time is right. If you haven’t already, please contact your TC Partner so they can assist you with preparing a cashflow forecast.
Call us on 0330 088 7111 to discuss further.