Focusing on Finances for a Post-Lockdown World

Remember your swimming badges at school… My least favourite was the one where – after you had already swum multiple lengths and dived in for a brick – you still had to swim a length in your pyjamas. I remember feeling tired, my swimming stroke wasn’t particularly strong and the weight of my wet PJs made the last bit pretty tough.
I think a lot of us feel like that now, having got through the last few months and fortunate to still have a business, we now must turn our attention to making it post-lockdown. We all feel a bit beaten up by it all. That’s why I’ve decided to share a few tips to get you energized and ready to tackle the post lockdown period.

Growth

We are all in a growth phase now as we rebound from this period, but this is different from when you started your business and grew from nothing. Now you can use everything you have learnt from the first time you did it and grow faster and more profitably.
My two key questions to consider;-
Who you want to sell to?
Is it the same people you sold to before or do you now better understand the profile of customer you want to work with? Think about the size of customer, the sector they are in, the location or even the number of decision makers you have to deal with.
What do you want to sell?
Do you know which of your products or services are the most profitable? Can you drop services you didn’t enjoy delivering, have you pivoted during lockdown and have great new offerings to get out there?

Capacity

Do you know the maximum capacity you could deliver right now based on your existing cost base?
It’s important to understand this and compare it to what you are delivering and think you may be able to in the coming months.
If you realise you are currently over- capacity, then consider:
-Use of the flexible nature of the Job retention Scheme from 1 July. Understanding what staff you need now is key and knowing your trigger points in terms of sales vs capacity, so you bring people back at the right time.
-Unfortunately, you may need to make redundancies now to preserve the long-term future of your business. If based on realistic sales this is necessary, then do not take too long making this decision.
If you are under capacity because business is going better than anticipated, then think about whether you really need to employ or are you better surrounding yourself with a network of good quality freelancers. The second option puts less pressure on fixed cots during what may be a volatile time.

Forecast

In such an uncertain time there is no getting away from the fact you need to forecast your cash flow.
Factors to consider:
Income – So hard to really know what will happen- will recovery be U or V shaped- who knows. Start with your best guess based on what you know now.
Costs – Ensure you build back in any costs which have been reduced during this period e.g. rent reductions, other premises related costs. You may also want to build in costs to help you re-build such as advertising or marketing.
Loan repayments– any loan repayment holidays may be about to expire so ensure you have considered these.
Tax deferrals – If you deferred Vat as part of the Vat deferral scheme ensure you rebuild in repaying this before 31 March 2021.
Sensitivity – Now you have done all this look at how sensitive you are to change – if sales were 10 or 20% lower than you have forecast what impact will that have on your cashflow
Financing – Now you know your position consider if you have the right financing in place.
So deep breath folks, we made it this far. You built your business before and all of this will help you to build faster and more profitably second time round.

More Support

Helen Fleet of HF Financial Strategy works as a finance director and guides companies to delivering their financial and business objectives which can include cashflow planning, pricing reviews and ways to improve profitability.
Helen kindly crafted this blog as part of our Return to Work Toolkit. You can download it for free here.