We want to stress that pausing all business outgoings apart from the % of wages your staff need, just whilst the Govt find a way through this more calmly is the wise thing to do. There have been many businesses making redundancies and closing up shop, however we need to stress that the Government do not want businesses to make redundancies.
Look at it this way, if administrators go into a business, they pause everything apart from staff wages and key suppliers in order to stop trading. You need to start thinking like that as it's essential you preserve cash for the next week. Incase you missed it, check out our guidance update from this morning on contacting suppliers and lenders in order to maximise your cash reserves.
As mentioned this morning, the Govt are now saying that CBILS will be available from some point next week. “This has been brought forward, and we now expect the new scheme to become available in week commencing 23 March 2020”, this of course doesn’t help businesses today. However, there will still be affordability and security requirements and it's important to know that those that couldn’t have had a loan last month, are unlikely to get one with this scheme.
If you are interested in raising finance through this scheme or any others, please fill in this form so that we can get you onto the Capitalise platform and 'in the system'. In light of these unprecedented times, we will be waiving our usual Raising Finance service fee of £500.00 for existing clients in order help you through this process.
What else can you be doing in the meantime?
- Preparing cashflow forecasts can be very basic or very complicated. We suggest you do a detailed cashflow (line by line expenditure with specific payment dates) for a rolling 3 month period.
- Cashflows need to be checked and adjusted as more becomes known, daily or even more often. They are living documents, don't do them once and put them away. They will be your roadmap for your business and with knowledge comes power, which will quell your anxiety and free your mind up to concentrate on other things you can control.
- Software - you can use excel but this can be quite clunky. If however this is your preferred method we do have a template that you can download in order to produce a cashflow here
- If you have cloud accounting (xero, quickbooks etc) you can use one of these apps:
(if you need additional support on producing a forecast via Futrli or otherwise, please get in touch with us)
Once you have prepared your cashflows, you can see where the gaps in working capital are. If your business was strong before, you may be able to get new facilities without any cashflows, if you have security and are willing to stand behind a PG and/or other security.
Coronavirus Guidance | Webinar - 24/03/20 at 3pm
There is genuine concern and worry amongst the business community, but we want you to know that our team are ready to help you and the wider business community get through this crisis.
Whilst the primary concern of any organisation is the wellbeing and safety of their employees a plan needs to be put in place now to ensure there is a sustainable platform to operate from as the crisis is navigated and then left behind.
In this webinar with Raffingers Partner, Lee Manning - we will be taking you through all of the updates that are announced over the weekend and explain what they mean for you and how you can take action. There will be allocated time for you ask any questions that you wish, and we hope that this webinar will provide you with some clear information and an actionable plan.
We hope to see you all there, our next guidance update will be about how to find/access additional finance you may need.
Previous Coronavirus Updates:
Finance and Employee Issues | Coronavirus
Contacting Suppliers and Lenders | Coronavirus
What To Do When In Limbo | Coronavirus
Guidance For Our Clients | Coronavirus