Cash Flow
Payment terms are a loan you did not decide to make
Agreeing to be paid some weeks after delivery means financing your client for that period, and the…
· 4 min read
Cash Flow
Money arriving later than it leaves, which is what actually closes small businesses.
20 articles · page 1 of 2
Cash Flow
A profitable business can still run out of money
Profit and cash are two different measurements taken at two different moments, and the gap between them is what closes small businesses that were doing well on paper.
By Hannah Whitfield · · 4 min read
Cash Flow
A deposit changes who is carrying the project
Money taken before work begins does more than improve the bank balance — it moves commitment, filters…
· 4 min read
Cash Flow
Staged payments turn one large risk into several small ones
Splitting a project into paid stages limits how much work is ever unpaid at once, which changes the…
· 4 min read
Cash Flow
Cash is forecast in weeks, because that is how it runs out
A monthly view of money coming in and going out hides the days when the account is actually empty, and…
· 3 min read
Cash Flow
Chasing an overdue invoice without losing the client
Most late payment is a process failure rather than a refusal, and treating it as one recovers the money…
· 4 min read
Cash Flow
When an invoice will not be paid at all
A debt that is never going to be collected has to be recognised, written off and learned from, and the last…
· 3 min read
Cash Flow
Set aside what is not yours on the day it arrives
Some of the money that lands in a business account is already committed elsewhere, and the businesses that…
· 3 min read
Cash Flow
A quiet month was visible three months earlier
Gaps in income are almost always preceded by gaps in the pipeline, and the delay between the two is what…
· 3 min read
Cash Flow
What a business buffer is for, and how to size one
A reserve inside the business does a different job from personal savings, and working out how big it needs…
· 4 min read
Cash Flow
Getting paid from another country adds steps, fees and time
An invoice that crosses a border passes through more hands than a domestic one, and each of them takes a…
· 3 min read
Cash Flow
Work in progress is money you have spent and not yet asked for
Between starting a job and sending the invoice, a business is carrying its own costs on somebody else’s…
· 3 min read