Your Money Machine - Cash flow management - Russell Colbourne

Russell Colbourne : Your Money Machine

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INTRODUCTION
Your business is Your Money Machine.  In this Show – I’ll take you under the hood of your enterprise and show you how to fine tune your business.  Get ready for lift off as we add rocket fuel to your profitability!  This show is focused on businesses that have launched and are preparing for exponential growth.

Are you sure you’re ready for exponential growth?  Getting your mindset right to transition from business owner to CEO.  Are you prepared to give up some control and trust others to help you build?  As well as ensuring all your systems and standard operating procedures have been documented and are in place, you will need to ensure your financial reporting provides you with the feedback you need to run your business. 

Poor cash flow management can cause huge problems for even the most profitable businesses. Until you find and fix the cause of cash flow problems in your business then put systems in place  for managing it, your company is at a very grave risk of failure.  For the stark truth is without cash, your business will be unable to meet its payroll obligations, be more likely to default on payments to suppliers and creditors, and in the worst case, be forced to cease trading.  Without well-defined and well-managed strategies to avoid running into cash flow problems and a plan to improve cash flow if such problems should arise, many companies will flounder, yours included.


What You Need to Know - The What

• The main causes of cash flow problems in any business
• Where to unlock cash from your business
• Increasing cash flow
• How to prevent your business from “Growing Bust”
• How a part-time CFO can help resolve your cashflow problems.

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What You Need to Do - The How

There are many activities that sit behind each of the 12 boxes and the list below is not exhaustive, but merely gives some examples of what a business owner needs to consider in the area of cashflow management:

• Identify and address immediate threats to you business, such as: 
  • Chasing late paying customers to encourage them to pay; 
  • Hiring a company that provides invoice financing (either invoice discounting or factoring); 
  • Arranging short-term loans or overdraft facilities with your bank; 
  • Considering other funding sources besides banks and other lending institutions such as self-finance, or loans from family and friends, partners, investors and alternative finance like peer-to-peer lending; 
  • Asking for better terms from creditors; 
  • Identifying and addressing the underlying problem; 
  • Prevent cash flow problems from recurring: 
  • Working out your break-even sales figure; 
  • Downgrading a your drawings from the business until revenue improves; 
  • Look for ways to increase the profit margins such as raising prices; 
• Cutting costs by: 
  • Stopping work on non-critical capital projects; 
  • Reviewing your stock and selling off obsolete, damaged or discounted products; 
  • Eliminating slow-moving products or less popular services; 
  • Negotiating price discounts for volume purchases from suppliers; 
  • Considering downsizing; 
  • Ditching products or services with the lowest profit margins; 
  • Reducing labour costs (without triggering a drop in productivity); 
  • Speeding up the sales process; 
  • Lowering miscellaneous expenses; 
  • Refinancing your debt obligations; 
  • Analysing if jobs or services can be outsourced; 
  • Holding a sale of surplus or slow-moving stock; 
  • Approaching suppliers to negotiate better deals; 
  • Asking suppliers to take back excess stock;
  • Selling off underused assets and renting the equipment instead. 
• Improving credit control: 
  • Getting written agreement to your credit terms before taking on new clients; 
  • Carrying out credit checks on all new customers; 
  • Invoicing at the time of sale or close to it; 
  • Ensuring sales invoices are accurate; 
  • Treating the collection of monies owed as a high priority; 
  • Setting up an invoice dispute resolution process;
  • Instigate the use of regular cash flow forecasts. 

Shows 

• Previous: Episode 8 – Profit Improvement
• Next: Episode 10 – Strategic activities, exit planning and Implementation

 
Written by Russell Colbourne, FCCA, GAICD
Your Money Machine
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Russell is a CFO and Entrepreneur who has worked across a diverse range of industries over the past 25 years.  After a short service commission as a pilot flying Seaking Helicopters in the British Royal Navy, Russell studied business and qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) in the UK. Since then he has been integral with the start-up of many successful companies and operations within larger organisations.  He has bought, sold and spun off business operations in the UK, Australia and the US. 

In 1994 Russell joined Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airlines where he was responsible for a number of innovative services that were, at the time, ground breaking and helped revolutionise air transport.  From launching the world’s first limo boat on the River Thames to developing the world’s first handheld check-in device and implementing drive through check-in booths around the world, Russell has helped the Virgin Group deliver unparalleled customer service. In 2000 Russell was the first of the Virgin team to arrive in Australia to start a new low cost Airline, and within 8 months had built a team operating flights between Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Russell now works as a Part Time CFO for a number of SME businesses in South Australia.  He is a Director of a health and wellbeing business; a crowdfunding website for educational costs and of the Founder Institute program in Adelaide where he lives with his wife and 3 teenage sons.

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