Stay on top of your cashflow: grow your small business with Gary Turner, MD of Xero
Summary: Maintaining a healthy cash flow is absolutely essential for a small business to survive. It sounds so strange to have to say that, but if it’s so obvious, why do so many of us get into trouble when it comes to cash flow? Why aren’t we more aware of where we stand financially? What are the issues that are affecting our cash flow?<br> Cash flow can be a problematic area for businesses of any size, but it can be a particularly difficult for small business owners, especially during their first couple of years. We can often get distracted by finding the clients and doing the work. This means that invoicing, accounts and so on take a back seat. We’ll get the money for that next month, we tell ourselves. And, because we’re just starting out, we justify dipping into our personal accounts as we say that’s just what entrepreneurs do in the early days. The buzz of completing a project successfully and looking for the next big client might mean we don’t start invoicing right away. We may accept a client’s longer payment terms without any negotiation just to ensure we get their business.<br> These are all understandable reasons why accounting gets neglected sometimes but we can quickly find ourselves in trouble if we don’t keep an eye on our finances. And, there are always going to be other issues that will crop up. Clients may take their time to pay your invoices and it can feel rude to keep chasing them up. You may have some emergency personal expenses that can’t be delayed or a larger than usual tax bill. Before you know it, you’ve got nothing to show for the many hours of hard work you’ve put in and the wolf is at the door. How can we avoid some of these issues and help our businesses thrive?<br> With us on this episode of your favourite small business podcast is Gary Turner, the managing director of small business cloud-based accountancy service, Xero. Gary’s been working on accountancy software for more than twenty years, so he has a wealth of experience and knowledge about what companies do well and not so well when it comes to maintaining a healthy cash flow.<br> As ever, our guest is going to be giving you some actionable tips that can be implemented in any small business and help you better avoid the stresses and strains that come with dwindling cash reserves.<br> Issue Challenged in this Small Business Podcast: <br> How can I stay on top of my cash flow and grow my business?<br> About Gary:<br> Gary Turner is the managing director of Xero, an innovative and beautifully designed cloud-based accounting software for small businesses. With Xero, small business owners can connect with their accounting data anytime, anywhere and on any device. In only a few short years, the company has grown to become the market leading cloud accountancy product in the UK, New Zealand and Australia.<br> Prior to joining Xero, Gary gained over 20 years’ experience in the accountancy software field. He’s here on this episode of your favourite small business podcast to share his expertise and tips for keeping on top of your finances as well as some of the pitfalls to avoid. <br> Gary’s Actionable Tips:<br> <br> * Keep on top of your accounts. Staying on top of your books and making sure they are as accurate as possible is the most important aspect of maintaining cash flow. Updating your records as frequently as possible will help you know where you stand.<br> * Be fair and direct with your customers. There’s no need to be too lenient or a pushover. Just be clear about your terms in the beginning. Although it can feel nerve-wracking, there’s nothing wrong with asking to be paid within a reasonable amount of time for quality work. Your customers know that for you to continue working, you need to be paid.<br> * Keep your accounting as simple as possible. We often use our own systems to keep track of data and financial information but this can be difficult for anyone else to make sense of. Maybe Evernote for this,
