It is predicted that thousands of Australians are about to lose their jobs because the businesses they work for have not taken up the Federal Government’s offer of assistance from experienced insolvency experts. As a former Chartered Accountant I have mostly seen “insolvency experts” charging outrageous fees to close businesses down rather than revive them.
My solution has always been to obtain an aged list of creditors and contact each one to negotiate an acceptable payment program. They mostly want to keep the business afloat too, because they want it as a continuing customer. I would also get a list of debtors and give the oldest ones a call to see if we could negotiate a plan for them to pay the business what is owed. That would usually produce cash much faster than happened when the business owner was to busy or afraid to call them.
Next we would have lengthy discussions with the business’s bankers to make sure they looked after the business well and that the business honoured its obligations to the bank.
Then with a budget that was checked monthly against actual performance and strict limits on spending that did not produce fairly immediate revenue, we would see the business turn around and flourish.
When businesses suffer acute liquidity problems there is usually a fairly easy solution. Many debt problems relate to bad borrowing or spending decisions in the first place. If your business is in strife let me know and let’s see how quickly it can be turned from cash shortage to cash surplus and from loss to profit.
Greg