Cash Management
It has been said many times that a business can go out of business faster if cash flow is poor than if a business is unprofitable. At Strategic Essentials, we have many years of cash management experience and bring an exceptional system to the small and mid-size companies we work with who have a desire to improve their cash flow.
In this process, we take a comprehensive approach that is both an art and a science. The science is numbers driven and inputs relevant information into the cash flow system. The art is the “guestimating” which predicts the timing of deposits, collections, unbooked sales in the pipeline, equipment purchases or desired business expansion projects.
Some aspects of this service include:
- An excel spreadsheet (“The Science”) that will forecast a minimum of 10 weeks out
- Expected payments, monies and/or additional sales needed for the period
- Projection of all expenses, fixed payments (rent, etc.), loans, credit cards, payroll, taxes, income for owners, set asides, savings, etc.
- Accurate projections of weekly cash balances
- The art of doing business in such a way as to enjoy less stress and more confidence in the profitability of the company
- How to propose and communicate with clients so that they can KNOW when their clients will pay them.
- How to increase their sales, do their work more productively while retaining satisfied clients
- How to lead and manage their staff to create a “win” for the company and the employee
- How to control their expenses for more profitability
- How to protect their prime vendors, i.e., rent, etc. from bumps in their cash flow
- How to have conversations with their vendors when they hit headwinds in their business
- How to time additional expenses and still keep more money in the bank
- How to pay themselves and have the appropriate set asides for growth
If you only use the “art without the science”, or the “science without the art”, then you are missing the benefits that combine the experienced insights of the business owner with the hard numbers that inevitably lead to making increasingly effective decisions which improve the bottom line.
We work closely with our clients to help them not only understand the moving pieces involved with successful cash management, but to become competent in handling their own cash flow in a manner that creates income for them, as well as growth and profitability.
Success Stories:
-Client was a licensed contractor who was about $27K behind with the IRS for payroll taxes, as well as having challenges staying up with credit and vendor obligations at the time we began consulting with them. Within about 120 days, the IRS obligation was brought current and within another year this contractor had about $30K in savings on top of taking payroll for themselves as business owners.
-Another client’s profits went up 67% even after making her P/T assistant full time and paying for consulting services.
