- 1. To manage your cash flow, you need to set up systems of reporting with your staff so that the management knows every single day how much each customer actually owes you. Without this information you cannot manage your cash flows.
- 2. Start chasing all debtors before the Invoice is due, to remind them that you are on top of all your cash flow and make an effort to Thank each customer when they pay you, whenever they eventually pay you.
- 3. Set Cash Flow targets for your finance staff, each week and month, like you set your sales staff.
- 4. Every single person on your company needs to have a Job Description, so that you and they know what to do and when. Not only does this help you assess how well (or not) each person is performing, but ensures all the work is completed, all the time. This also allows you to introduce new responsibilities when it suits you and your business.
- 5. Spend half your annual IT budget on IT training so that your staff can do their job more efficiently, with less effort & hassle.
- 6, Training your staff on how to use their existing IT is much better value for money than buying any new IT or IT upgrade and is probably the quickest / most profitable investment in your business you could make. Your staff will also appreciate being able to do their work much more easily and with less frustration.
- 7. Set time aside for your staff to write procedures for all their work and incorporate it to their Job Descriptions; This is essential for ensuring staff complete all their work, measuring their individual performance, minimising duplication and helps when training new staff. It also reinforces good working practices in your business and reinforces the sustainability of your profits, so building our company’s Goodwill.
- 8. Develop or buy a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to ensure you extract all the sales out of all your customers and enhance your Customer services. For example this should allow you to address each Invoice to the correct person in every customer or their deputy when the key person holidays.
- 9. A CRM system should also work to facilitate your company having a contract with each customer, clearly spelling out your Ts & Cs, payments timetable and who is responsible for each aspect of your supply / service to each customer.
- 9. Train all your finance & reception staff in 21st Century scams, make them aware of phishing emails or phone calls and how to manage and record them.
- 10. Move all your customers over to electronic payments to improve your cash flow and eradicate cheques being “lost in the post”.
- 11. Start chasing all debtors before the Invoice is due, to remind them that you are on top of all your cash flow and make an effort to Thank each customer when they pay you, whenever they eventually pay you.
- 12. Ensure every member of staff leaving your business gets an “Exit Interview”, it’s the most honest appraisal of your business you’ll ever get, from the inside.
MORE TO COME