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Why is cash flow even an issue?

We’ve all heard the quote “turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is always king”…

We understand that turnover is the level of sales our business makes, we also understand that some things we sell make more money than others and that it is never a good idea to sell something at less than it costs to provide.

But do we really understand what cash flow is and how to use it to benefit the growth of your business?

In essence, good cash flow is securing the profit you have made on the Companies turnover as soon as possible and paying for the inputs, that were required to make that sale, on time. Inputs could be the simple cost of an item, distribution costs plus administrative overhead. Or they could be more complex, say in a situation where a process is used that has many inputs at every stage in the process.

Paying for the inputs

If you need to pay for the inputs before you receive the actual cash you will need to find a solution to cover the cash costs. Cash is therefore separate from the accounting profit.

If you are producing a product over a number of months (like a house for example) there will be many costs that need to be paid for to end up with a finished house that can be sold. From an accounting perspective these costs will be deducted from the sales price to arrive at a profit when it is sold. But until it is sold cash is going out of the business and is being recorded as ‘work in process’ or ‘stock’ as an asset on the balance sheet. This is just an accounting way of carrying forward costs to allocate them to the sales value in the future accounting period, but this has no resemblance to the cash reality of what is going on.

It probably goes without saying that the best cash flow you can get is to receive the funds up front.

There are many ways to ensure this happens and in businesses that serve the consumer it is the norm.

However, further down the supply chain there are many more businesses that add value to a finished product or service. The norm here is to offer trade credit terms allowing time for a customer to pay for the good or service provided.

The use of credit

The use of credit allows for faster delivery of the good or service as invoicing and payment are not required beforehand. It has sparked many industries – credit control, credit reference agencies, debt collection, trade credit insurance, invoice finance, to name a few.

With the ability of customers to pay late or go out of business before the payment is made to you it is no wonder that this availability of credit is a cause for much consternation. In the UK many businesses are regularly paid late – this is the same for those involved in public and private supply chains.

Late payments

Late payment is more normal than payment on time. This has an inevitable knock-on effect that means Companies paid late cannot pay their supplier commitments and so on down the line. The first step in good cash flow is rarely adhered to.

Even in industries that supply to end consumer businesses (such as supermarkets and cafes) that take payment from their customer on the day the goods are sold, credit is given to them by their suppliers. This credit allows the retailer to stock their shelves with unpaid products in the hope that these get sold before the payment is due to be made to the supplier. If they don’t, this can have a negative impact on cash flow as they will still be required to pay for them.

Trade credit

With trade credit a necessity for the smooth operation of business, it is those businesses that manage their cash flow well that will have excess cash available to take advantage of new opportunities.

In business there are many phases but cash flow can be split into 3:

  1. Scraping by, or just surviving
  2. Extra cash for investing back in
  3. Excess cash to start taking rewards

Personally, I find statements like these quite misleading as they imply that there is a clear point at which one phase starts and the other ends. But imagine, if you will, lots of grey areas and cross over between them and also that you can move up and/or down the scale depending on how good you are at managing your cash.

Level 1 is when you barely have enough cash to cover your costs of operating – there is no spare cash – most often this is attributed to start ups, but I know of many businesses that struggle to move past this phase as they don’t follow the next step before reaching the third – those businesses are forever doomed to either just get by or die!

Level 2 is where you have extra cash in your business over and above operating costs – my goodness you’ve worked hard to get to this point. You are now thinking that having made some headway it is time to take some money out for yourself.

I’ve been here and I know the temptation is hard to resist. But resist it you must. You are not yet the owner of a business – just a better paying job!

If you want to benefit from the freedom that a business that can operate without you can provide, you must use the extra cash generated by the business to invest it back into the business. Improve your capacity, develop systems that encapsulate your vision so that you can employ people to operate and manage them for you – you will make the business more consistent/reliable for your customers which will in turn make it more valuable to you. A potential purchaser can be shown that the business operates without you – you will be amazed what this adds to the multiples you can achieve at sale…

Cash management

Level 3 is the point where, as an owner, you can start to reward yourself for having put in the extra effort at level 2. The business has sufficient cash to operate and take advantage of opportunities and any excess cash can be withdrawn to allow you the freedom to live the life you always wanted.

This is not to say that ‘the business runs itself’ and that you will never again experience cash flow crises – the size of a business is no guarantee of plain sailing and consistent profit – just look at Woolworths, Carrillion, Thomas Cook and Intu… they all ran out of cash even though they were ‘profitable’!!

But, with a focus on generating cash first and NOT accounting profit, I believe these steps can be navigated and the ingrained discipline around cash management that will have developed will be a good basis for continued success.

Playfair Finance wants to help as many businesses as we possibly can. Contact us today so that we can help you set up a plan and work out a solution to keep the cash flowing through your business.

Call us today on 01383 624 425 or submit an enquiry and we will contact you.

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The transformed business finance landscape

I would like to use this time to try to take stock of what has happened over the last three months in terms of the Coronavirus pandemic and the support available for U.K businesses.

Even though it has only really been a few months, it has completely transformed the way some businesses do business.

And it has certainly transformed the financial landscape for all businesses and will probably continue to do so for the next maybe six, twelve, maybe even eighteen months.

Is this the landscape that you feel your business is in?

I think the prediction, really, from many bodies is that we will not actually get back to being where we were at in the next three years.

So it’s going to be difficult trading conditions and some of these problems that we have been encountering, you just could never have envisaged happening in a month of Sundays.

So, if you are experiencing difficulty with your finances, then please do not panic.

Do not bury your head in the sand.

Get some expert advice.

And if you get some expert advice, you have got a chance of being able to plan your way out of the Coronavirus pandemic and trade back to some level of normality rather than getting to the point where maybe you run out of cash and everything falls about around you.

That would be a tragedy for any business, but particularly as a result of, really, something you had no control over.

Contact us so we can put your business back into a thriving landscape.

So, if there is any way that we can help you at all, please DO get in touch.

That is what we are here for.

We want to save as many businesses as we possibly can, because only by businesses surviving will the economy start to thrive again.

Call us today on 01383 624 425 or submit an enquiry and we will contact you.

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Are you starting to panic about business cashflow or invoice funding?

I have been wondering whether there are people out there who have businesses who are starting to panic a little bit about their financial situation.

Now, this could be a growing feeling of concern that your cash flow is going to stall, or maybe you have noticed that the cash is not moving around your business as it did before the Coronavirus pandemic. You might have the growing realisation that you are going to run out of cash before you actually start to get money coming back in through the door.

Raising Invoices

Or it could be that you are raising invoices, but you are not getting paid as quickly as you would like to get paid.

So, you are wondering how you are going to pay your own bills, or it just could be that you don’t have any cash reserves?

As a result of not having any cash reserves, you have no confidence in terms of being able to meet your commitments going forward.

If this is the case, then we may have a solution for you, and it is a solution that I have used in the past in previous businesses to ensure that the cash keeps flowing, and that cash flow solution can be a life saver.

 

And if it is a life saver and we can help to save more businesses from going out of business, then that is why I am here.

So, if you do have a requirement to even just talk to somebody about it, because the worst thing you can do really is to bury your head in the sand and think that everything’s going to be fine, and it will go away.

It probably will not go away, and it will need to be addressed.

Review your businesses financial plan

Now, whether it is addressed with reviewing your financial plan and your costs or whether it is by putting a solution in place, something needs to happen.

Contact us today so that we can help you set up a plan and work out a solution to keep the cash flowing through your business.

 

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How has your business health been?

I was just wondering how your health had been throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.

I notice a lot of people in my local area have taken up jogging, and cycling, and myself included, certainly, have taken up walking to a greater degree with steps going through the roof over the last three months.

So, everybody is in a little bit of a better position with regards to their health and whether that has reflected in their mental health, is another matter.

But the area that really concerns me is the financial health of people’s businesses.

So, if you have a business and you are a little bit worried about how you’re going to trade through this period, the questions really to ask yourself are do you have a plan?

Have you got a plan to get through from where you are now to where you want to be?

Have you got cash reserves?

If you find that the invoices that you do start to raise start to take longer to get paid as a result of the knock-on effect from this pandemic, because everybody really has been affected, are you going to be able to meet the commitments that you have in terms of your bills?

And, do you have a budget and a cash flow?

And do the budget and the cash flow match or is there a shortfall there?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then I would urge you to get in touch with us on the basis that we can probably come up with a solution for you.

Call us today on 01383 624 425 or submit an enquiry and we will contact you.

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What’s the difference between an Overdraft and an Invoice Finance Facility?

I have been getting asked recently ‘What is the difference between an Invoice Finance Facility and an Overdraft?’

Well, here is the answer. An Overdraft is the most commonly used form of short-term finance, with 16% of SMEs in the UK having one. An overdraft has an arrangement fee to put in into place, you pay interest when you’re using it (no interest when you’re not), and it’s a short-term facility – generally 12 months and renewed at the end of the year.

So if you’re constantly at the limit of your overdraft facility, then there is always the danger that it could be construed as a long-term debt rather than a short-term facility and the bank could ask you to repay that, potentially by putting it into a term loan. At
which point, the benefit of having the overdraft, in terms of no capped repayment requirement and no monthly cost, is superseded because the loan now has a monthly repayment.

The alternative to that, as is often put forward and is a very different kind of facility, is the Invoice Finance Facility.

The Invoice Finance Facility provides you with money upfront on your invoices, before you get paid by your customer.

There is a monthly management fee which needs to be paid on the facility, and you pay interest as and when you are required to borrow money against the invoice. So, if you’re not borrowing against an invoice, then you’re not paying any interest.

I guess the best way to look at it is to compare two companies. So, if we’ve got two companies that are look to grow – company 1 has an overdraft and company 2 has an Invoice Finance Facility.

Now, company 1, when it grows, will grow using its overdraft facility, which is a set amount of money, and it will get to the overdraft limit and find that it starts to run out of cash as it tries to grow through that glass ceiling. So, it will need to go back to the bank and renegotiate the overdraft facility or potentially take out a loan in order to get to the next level of growth.

And then it may use up that finite amount of money as it continues to grow, and once again, it will have to do the same thing again and go back to the bank and try to renegotiate a new deal.

Whereas company 2, they have an Invoice Finance Facility. As they start to grow, they raise more invoices. The invoices then have money provided against them by the lender providing the Invoice Finance Facility which allows them to continue to grow, because the facility grows with them. It’s not the case of needing to renegotiate the facility every time the company grows, or needs more cash.

So an Invoice Finance Facility is a much more powerful way of actually growing your business without having to constantly worrying about reaching a predetermined limit set by the bank.

All that needs to happen is the business keeps growing, keeps selling, and keeps making a profit and the facility will grow with it. It’s a very powerful way of using the cash within a business in order to grow.

I’ve talked a lot about these facilities being very good for the survival of a business, which they absolutely are, but they are also very good for growth. I also think that they are very misunderstood in the market. The reason that I say that is that less than 1% of all UK businesses have an Invoice Finance Facility in place.

If you would like to get in front of other businesses by using an Invoice Finance Facility, if you have any questions, or would like the Financial Health of your business assessed, get in touch today and we can open a conversation.

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Scottish Contract Cleaning Company with cash flow problems?

We help Scottish Contract Cleaning Companies to improve their cash flow by releasing cash that they’ve got tied up in their sales invoices.

I’ve been in business for over 30 years, but one of the questions I’m getting asked at the moment is ‘How do I improve my cash flow when my customers are struggling to pay their bills?’

 

So here’s my best advice. If you’re in the Scottish business-to-business sector you will be raising invoices for your goods or services and normally you’ll be waiting 45 to 60 days to be paid for those invoices.

Now, with the Coronavirus you may have seen a drop-off in trade. If that’s the case you won’t be raising as many sales invoices so the amount of money that you’re going to have coming in over the next
six months or so will be significantly reduced.

Now you may well have enough money to get you through to the point where we can get started again, back up to normal levels, or start to ramp things up again. But, when we actually get to that point, you’re going to have to wait 45 to 60 days again on the new invoices that you’re raising.

So you’re going to have a bit of a funding gap between raising the invoice, getting the cash, and being able to thrive when we come out of this time. So, if you want to release some money in your invoices, this is where Invoice Finance can come in.

So, Invoice Finance will allow you to have 85 to 90 percent of that invoice in your bank account to assist your cash flow within 24 hours. At the moment the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme can be used on certain facilities if you qualify to provide a guarantee to the lender.

Now, this is something that we specialise in here at Playfair Finance and it’s really easy for us to do the legwork for you to save you from having to go to every provider, for there are many in the marketplace.

We take the application from you, and we then go out to the market to find the best provider for you based on your sector, your turnover, and how your business has been trading.

So, we save you the time, but we can also find you the best deal.

Now, the best part of that is that actually, there is no charge for our services to do that. The charges are actually paid by the lender so you don’t have to pay anything at all.

So, if you’re a Scottish Contract Cleaning company and you would like some help with Invoice Financing, please get in touch.

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Security Guard Companies and their funding gap – how are they going to fill it?

Some of my Security Guard company clients have been asking me how they can bridge the financial gap between the downturn of trade and when things return to normal.

 

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas.

I help Scottish Security Guard Companies who are having problems with their cash flow, to release cash from their sales invoices.

I’ve been in business for over 30 years and one of the questions that my customers have been asking me lately is ‘how do I get my cashflow moving now that other businesses are having trouble paying their bills?’.

Here’s my best advice:

If you’re a Scottish firm operating in the business-to-business sector, you’ll be raising invoices for your products or services. At the moment, your normal payment terms for those invoices will most likely be 45 to 60 days. You may have seen a drop-off in trade and the amount of money that you’re going to have over the coming months will be significantly reduced.

You may well have enough to get you through until the point where you can begin trading at normal levels again, but when you need cash to pay the bills as you return to normal trading levels, you’re going to have to wait another 45-60 days for payment. Therefore, the actual funding gap is going to be longer
than the business interruption.

How are you going to plug that gap?

This is where Invoice Finance and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) guarantee may be able to help. As soon as you raise an invoice you could have access to 85-90% of its value within 24 hours instead of having to wait the 45-60 days to get paid.

This will give you ready cash flow to allow you to meet your costs and thrive as we get back to normal.

This is something that I specialise in and my role is to make sure that you don’t need to go to lots of different providers. You only need to provide your information once and we will access the most suitable providers based on the sector that you’re in, your turnover, and how your business is doing.

It is a straightforward process to apply and it doesn’t cost you anything, my fee is covered by the provider.

For more information and to see how a flexible Invoice Finance orFactoring Solution can benefit your business, please call us today or submit an enquiry and we will contact you.

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Recruitment companies have options available to release cash from their sales invoices.

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas.

I help Recruitment Companies who are having problems with their cash flow, to release cash from their sales invoices.I’ve been in business for over 30 years and one of the questions that my customers have been asking me lately is ‘how do I get my cashflow moving now that other businesses are having trouble paying their bills?’.

Here’s my best advice: If you’re operating in the Business to Business sector, you’ll be raising invoices for your products or services. At the moment, your normal payment terms for those invoices will most likely be 45 to 60 days. You may have seen a drop-off in trade and the amount of money that you’re going to have over the coming months will be significantly
reduced.

You may well have enough to get you through until the point where you can begin trading at normal levels again, but when you need cash to pay the bills as you return to normal trading levels, you’re going to have to wait another 45-60 days for payment. Therefore, the actual funding gap is going to be longer than the business interruption.

How are you going to plug that gap? This is where Invoice Finance and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) guarantee may be able to help.

As soon as you raise an invoice you could have access to 85-90% of its value within 24 hours instead of having to wait the 45-60 days to get paid. This will give you ready cash flow to allow you to meet your costs and thrive as we get back to normal.

This is something that I specialise in and my role is to make sure that you don’t need to go to lots of different providers. You only need to provide your information once and we will access the most suitable providers based on the sector that you’re in, your turnover, and how your business is doing.

It is a straightforward process to apply and it doesn’t cost you anything, my fee is covered by the provider.

If you think this may work for you, or have any questions, fill out the ‘Contact Us‘ page on this website and we can have a discussion about how we can help.

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Invoice Finance facilities for the Scottish Transport and Haulage industry

Hi, my name is Graeme Shevas and I help Scottish Transport and Haulage companies to improve their cash flow by releasing monies from their sales invoices.

I’ve been in business for over 30 years and the question I’m getting asked most often at the moment is ‘How do I improve my cash flow now that my customers are finding it harder to pay their bills?’

So, here is my best advice. If you are in the Scottish business to business sector you will be raising invoices for your goods or services and you’ll probably be waiting 45-60 days to be paid for those invoices. As a result of the Coronavirus you may well have seen a downturn in trade. It’s not always the case with transport but certain sectors and companies certainly have, so
that will mean that you’re raising less invoices and as a result, the amount of money that you will have coming into your bank account over the next few months will be significantly reduced.

Now, you may well have enough money to get you through to when you return to normal levels of trade again, but when you get back to normal levels of trade you will have dwindled away your cash reserves and you will still have to wait 45 to 60 days to get paid for your new sales invoices.

So you’re going to have a funding gap, potentially, so how do you plug that funding gap?

This is where an Invoice Finance facility will be useful because if you have an Invoice Finance facility, as soon as you raise a sales invoice you can receive 85-90 percent of the value of that sales invoice into your bank account within 24 hours.

Now, with the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme you may well qualify for a guarantee to be provided, by the government, to the lender in order to put that facility into place.

This is something that we specialise in and my role is to make sure that you do not have to go to lots of different providers in order to find the best deal.

You apply solely to us and then we then take your application to the market and find the most suitable lender based on your sector, your turnover, and how your business has been trading. Once we find the most suitable lender, we then get
the best deal possible for you.

The best part of it is that this service does not actually cost you anything. The fee that we receive for doing this is paid for by the lender.

So, if you are a Scottish Transport or Haulage company and you are wanting to put into place an Invoice Financing facility then please fill out the Contact Us’ page on this website and we will work out what we can do to improve your cashflow.