I don’t know anyone who has a small business who says, “That was easier than I thought”. Business is hard. Business is stressful.
The recent COVID-19 outbreak has people stressed out about a lot of things and if you’re a small business one of those things is bound to be cashflow and how to pay your bills as they fall due. Even before this crisis, a global report by Intuit found that 69 per cent of businesses have been stressed out by cashflow issues alone.
Cashflow is actually more important than profit. Without sufficient cash, you can’t operate. The good news is there are number of things you can do to improve your cashflow and two important ones are easily done: increase how quickly you are paid and reduce how quickly money goes out of your business.
Speeding up payment
Automating your invoicing is one proven way to speed up payment. It enables you to generate invoices faster and more accurately. It also improves your customers’ experience with your company.
Emailing invoices and providing an online payment option can also speeds up collecting your cash.
Automating your invoicing payment collection is something that we often assist clients with to improve their cashflow. It’s also really easy with platforms like QuickBooks Online.
Reducing money spent
Again, the answer is in software. Using technology, you can scan receipts and other source documents and attach them to specific transactions. You can even use the same receipts and source documents to create transactions. You’ll save time and reconcile your bank account faster as well.
Turn on the class and location tracking equivalents so you can track, analyse and report on your expenses. This allows you to understand where your cash is going and have the right financial information to make decisions on when things might need to change. This includes knowing when you have cash free for purchases, meaning you’re less likely to overspend each month and can cut costs when needed.
It is cashflow that kills businesses so by using your software more efficiently you’ll give yourself the best chance of surviving and thriving. The even better news is that fact you probably already have the ability to do this.
Business is hard and getting harder, but by
tapping into technology you can make sure it’s no harder than it needs to be.
Kane Munro, Director, Accountancy Online
