Cash Flow Forecast

Two Firsts - it's never too late

Posted on May 28, 2014

The First First

Last week I addressed a CIMA evening seminar in Bristol. It was my first ever presentation to a purely professional group and the subject was Management Accounting for Growth.

It was a beautiful evening so I was hoping that we would manage as many as half a dozen in the audience. Imagine my surprise to find 40 had turned out and just about everyone took a brochure home.

The Second First

I have to admit that this was my first ever PowerPoint presentation. We've all suffered 'death by' and we've all winched when there's a technical hitch, as is so often the case. I cracked the first one by only having 17 slides for a 40 minute presentation and to cover the technical side I rehearsed until I was confident it worked. Then 15 minutes before the off, the organiser asked if he could run his PP intro on my computer! What should I do, I could see this messing up my careful arrangements but I allowed the sharing and fortunately all was well.

To my pleasant surprise learning PP was easy and intuitive. Slightly tricky pasting a pdf but I managed to work it out - now I'm ready for more.

The Subject

Well that's not the main point here but in essence: ensure quality, reconciled, prompt information and use it effectively otherwise it's a waste of time and money. Produce Gross Margin information and split it by sector, project, contract, office etc..

In addition key factors are:

•Finance •Cash Flow Forecast •Stock/WIP Control •Credit Management

and model the • Worst case scenario  

Contact me for the PP presentation:

Anthony Pilkington FCA

Managing Director, BookCheck Ltd

This entry was posted in Business Development, Management Accounts and tagged in Management Accounts, Bristol, Finance, Cash Flow Forecast, Stock Control, Credit Management by bookchadmin

It's that Cash thing again stupid!

Posted on September 23, 2013

What's the biggest challenge in expanding your business? Is it resources or is it winning orders? Is it IT? In fact your most likely challenge, even if you don't realise it, is going to be funding. Yet that seems counter intuitive because more sales equals more income - so what's the problem? It's simple to explain - it's a timing difference, in short the money goes out before more money comes in. That's the bit that needs financing. where's it coming from and how much do you need?

If you've got a cash pile then maybe you've no problem, at least until it runs out, otherwise you'll need to do what most expanding businesses don't do and that is plan. A Cash Flow Forecast is the basic tool but for most businesses that's a challenge. Who is going to produce it and how? What's the basis - are there any sound up to date Management Accounts from your Sage, Xero or other system?

This applies most directly to businesses that sell on credit to customers however even those which are paid at point of sale still have to finance the extra stock, selling and admin resources in advance. There's nothing more sad in business than seeing a 'successful' rapidly expanding company go bust and the most likely time for this is when coming out of a recession, just like now.

On the positive side good cash planning will enable you to expand without this restriction and boost your profits.

A short Action Plan:

1) Make Cash Flow top of the agenda

2) Review, tighten and implement your Credit Control system

3) Check and chase your debtors

4) Plan your cash flow for at least a year

5) Ensure you have sound, up to date accounts as a basis for planning Take 5 minutes to think this through - it could save your bacon

Anthony Pilkington,  

MD BookCheck Ltd  

This entry was posted in Business Development, Funding and tagged in Sage, Xero, Accounting System, Cash Flow Forecast, Credit Control by bookchadmin