6 Common Causes Of Cash Flow Problems In Small Businesses

Cash flow problems occur when a business does not have enough cash to pay its liabilities. This is an issue that nearly all companies go through when they experience low sales during certain seasons, have late-paying customers, and are faced with other factors that will affect their bottom line. The lack of good capital management strategies will also have a negative impact on a company’s cash flow.

Common Reasons Behind Cash Flow Problems

Small businesses will often have cash flow problems because of one or more of the following reasons:

The most important sources of cash for all businesses are their sales and profits. A company must have income to allow sustained business operations and avoid cash flow problems.

Companies will experience a lull in sales due to various reasons: low seasonal demand, a general slowdown of business all around, economic factors, etc. If your business is reliant on sales, focusing on driving these can help your company avoid these issues. This means you need to work on your marketing campaigns to get more leads and convert them into sales.

Your cash flow will be severely affected if you have numerous unpaid invoices and clients or customers who do not pay on time. When the time comes for you to settle your company’s debt and other payment obligations, you won’t be able to pay them if you don’t have any money in the bank. This will further cause your cash flow problems to worsen.

In addition, it can be easy to blame your clients or customers who are tardy in their payments, but occasionally, the fault may also lie in your collection processes. For instance, you wait weeks to send invoices and collect payments. This is an issue that can easily be corrected by distributing invoices as soon as possible and offering discounts for early payments. These simple tips will help expedite your collections which, in turn, will improve your company’s cash flow.

Poor management of inventory, which often leads to an excess of stock or assets lying around, can tie up valuable cash. This will also cause your business to hold cash unnecessarily that you could be using to fund your business. In addition, having a surplus of inventory means you run the risk of your stock becoming obsolete, which can cause other problems for your company.

If your overhead expenses exceed the money your business is getting, this can become a huge problem that will affect your cash flow.

This is a challenge that most startups will have to go through. If you’re in the initial stages of opening your business, it can be easy to find reasons to spend big. However, you need to minimize the expenses related to office space rental, marketing, travel, furniture, and other costs so that your cash flow won’t be in bad shape even before sales and profits start pouring in.

Investing too much money in a particular activity or certain goods without any prior research and planning can cause any business a slew of problems. For small businesses, overinvesting in too many fixed assets is not recommended since they are difficult to turn back into cash in the short term.

Overinvesting can also cause serious problems in a company’s cash flow if short-term finance is used to purchase the equipment or supplies.

Overtrading happens when a business expands too quickly, thereby putting pressure on short-term finance. Retail companies, in particular, are more inclined to make this mistake. They spend a lot of their money and even take out loans to open new branches, order supplies, and renovate their stores even without any assurance that all their investments will be paid off. As a result, these companies will find themselves in dire financial straits, and their cash flow will not be enough to sustain their operations and pay off their liabilities.

Identifying the reasons for your business’s cash flow problem is the first step you need to take to overcome these hurdles. From there, you can look at the different financing solutions that can help you solve your cash flow issues. Banks and lending institutions offer a variety of solutions which include loans,accounts receivable financing, and corporate credit cards. 

To avoid making more mistakes, consider consulting with trusted financial advisors so that you can choose the best solution for your financial worries.

Read Full Story