The Tough Times Business Checklist

With business conditions deteriorating for a lot of firms, now could be the time to review the way you run your business.

With the help of consultancy group 2020 we have put together a "tough-times business checklist" that will allow you to ensure that you stay on the right track during the turbulent times ahead:

• Review your Budgets and set realistic and achievable targets for the year. 
• Get rid of can’t pay/won’t pay customers. 
• Review debtors list and chase up overdue invoices. 

How well do you know your clients?

We have already stressed in the past the importance of credit control. It's even more critical in a difficult business environment to ensure that you only extend credit to those clients who will pay you. You don't have to rely on luck however. There are many tools that allow you to monitor your clients and be alerted they start showing signs of financial difficulties. But until now those tools have been very expensive and therefore most small businesses have been unwilling to use them.

That's not the case anymore. At TaxAssist Accountants, we have teamed with Red Flag Alert to get extensive data from which you can now benefit. Be it sales, credit control, collection, risk or compliance we have information on every limited company, every PLC, LLP, 3.5m sole traders and 26.7m director records. The data source comes from Companies House, London Gazette, Central Register and Equifax, which provides data intelligence and protection against credit risk. Using those tools you can now:

Monitor your risk
We can provide 'real time' critical automated e-mail alerts when a company being monitored starts to deteriorate. Using various detrimental triggers, we will notify you of changes to your customer/supplier status as they happen, in order to minimise your risk exposure.

Getting grants in the UK

The UK government has set aside more than two billion pounds in funding programmes (grants and loans) for financing small businesses. Free government grants are available to help you start-up, expand or improve your business, if you are eligible. Unfortunately finding the right grant can be extremely tedious as there is no official repository of all available grants and reliefs available. They are many kinds of financial aids available:

Grants and Subsidies
When you receive this money, you don't have to pay it back. It's yours to use under the terms of the grant. The national and regional governments know that it's tough for small businesses to bring new products to market, make your company more efficient, or hire employees. So they provide billions of pounds a year to aid UK product innovation and grow small businesses.

The national and regional governments also recognise that some regions and business sectors need more economic development support than others. Businesses across the country are eligible for some of the billions of pounds in funding allotted for this development. Small businesses accessing grant programmes enjoy a bonus benefit: once you've successfully received funding, you're more likely to get additional grants from the same agency because you meet their program requirements.

Am I insolvent?

The economy has been tough those last few years. Many businesses have gone under. You might have a hard time as well. Whatever your situation, it is important to understand what your options are. While no one likes to talk about insolvency it's better to face problems early on than wait until all your options have been exhausted. And if you have a limited company you have quite a few options are your disposal.

What is insolvency?

There are 2 kinds of insolvency. The first one is cash-flow insolvency and it happens when a company can no longer pay its bills and other obligations on time. The second one is called balance-sheet insolvency and and it occurs whenever liabilities exceed assets, i.e stockholder equity (capital plus accumulated losses) becomes negative. The second one is the one you have to be careful about, because it's possible to continue trading while in that state and the consequences can be dramatic.

10 tips to improve your Credit Control

We all know that there is only one way to go bust: lack of cash. Cash-flow management is therefore just as important as profit monitoring when it comes to manage your business. And the best way to do that is to keep a close eye on what accountants call the Aged Debtors list: those clients who have been billed but have not paid yet.

So how do you do it? Here are 10 tips you should follow to become a pro at managing your cash-flows:

1. Don't extend credit. This one is obvious: if you can avoid offering credit, you don't have a problem to solve any more. Unfortunately there are very few businesses that can afford to not offer credit. In most cases you will have to offer some level of credit. If that's the case, read on.
2. Do not invoice manually. With many systems to choose from, some for as low as £10/month, you should not invoice clients using Microsoft Word. Whether it's Kashflow, FreeAgent, Xero or Sage, all allow you to specify your standard terms and will alert you when a bill is overdue. They will also produce the Aged Debtors automatically. Lastly they will allow you to keep notes so that you know why the bill has not been paid next time you call to follow up.