Managing a Financial Crisis

Download the Toolkit: Finance Crisis Management for Horticulture Businesses

Many businesses will at some point, and for a variety of reasons, face a cash flow crisis. We have set out some tips that you might find useful specifically tailored to the horticulture industry.

In these unprecedented times, many horticulture businesses are facing huge pressure on their cashflow as a direct result of the impact of Covid-19.

There are some immediate steps which businesses can take to get control of their cashflow. These are not definitive, but are aimed at helping businesses think through the next steps. 

Keeping hold of, or managing cash, is critical; we don’t mean physical cash but the balance of your money in your accounts as opposed to with customers, suppliers or locked-up in assets when it could be working for you.

Be Strategic: 

1. Complete a daily cash flow forecast to make sure you know what cash is coming in and must go out over the next days and weeks. Most banks will send a daily balance through a phone app
2. Stop all direct debits; introduce a system where at least two people have to sign-off every invoice
3. Move to paying on statements, that way you don’t miss out on credit notes you are owed and it’s easier to reconcile invoices
4. Get VAT up to date so that it can be reclaimed and make sure receipts, invoices and cash are all accounted for
5. Move to a digital accounts system such as (Xero, Quickbooks, Sage ) These will help you manage finances, keep VAT and PAYE up to date and make paying and reclaiming tax less of a burden. Most of all you will see your cash and bills/invoices that are falling due.

The toolkit available to download below will provide some immediate steps which businesses can take to get control of their cashflow.