Tim Almond 13 Dec 05

One tip that’s been given to me is to offer clients a discount for early payment. I’ve not needed to try it myself, but it seems like a good idea.

For large projects, make sure that stage payments are factored in. If you are doing a large project, get an initial deposit, and then as phases are delivered, get payments.

There’s a lot of issues with trust and relationship with clients. If a customer is generally paying on time, and professional when dealing with me, I’m not going to go breathing down their neck if they are a few days late on an invoice. On the other hand, I’d probably ask a repeatedly late client by asking for more upfront.

mike 13 Dec 05

The most most most important to watch out for are your costs. They are the first reason why your money goes out. Watch it like a hawk, and save where necessary.

Jonas Haurum 13 Dec 05

8. Get hold of your equipment through advantageous barter agreements, when possible.

Ryan Carson 13 Dec 05

Tim, Mike and Jonas,

All good suggestions. Thanks.

Daniel 13 Dec 05

I don’t know about you guys but the no.1 factor is your number 7 rule. Companies here in The Netherlands cough up their invoices in anything between 30 - 90 days. Usually close to the 90 days and when things get worse its 120 days. I’d say cash flow management is rewarded most by putting effort in rule no.4.

Rich 13 Dec 05

That “Salary” column in the excel spreadsheet scares me. That is what keeps me from taking the leap out of my comfortable full time job. $1000/month? Unfortunately, where I live, it takes 3 times that much to pay an average home mortgage. I know those numbers are just for examples sake, but it still looks like I’ll have to continue on the slow track towards my entrepreneurial goals.

Ryan Carson 13 Dec 05

Rich, those are purely example numbers - they don’t have any base in reality. Please don’t let them scare you off!

Justin Johnson 13 Dec 05

couple of things that have helped me:

1. Ebay
2. A local marketing company uses me for their web development, so I barter marketing services for web services (ie: business cards, printed pieces, etc)
3. if you get a business checking account, don’t get a debit card, or if you do, don’t carry it with you all the time, you’ll be more likley to do impulse buys if you actualyl ahve it with you.

Max Ischenko 13 Dec 05

Rich, I reserve Salary line for expenses I pay for others instead of my own income. To me, it makes more sense. After all, you (the owner) get the profit. YMMV.

Brandon 13 Dec 05

Yeah, $1000 a month is a joke. I need 4 times that just to keep our mortgage paid and food on the table. Fortunately, I’ve been very fortunate and have some great, steady clients and new clients always seem to find me just when I think it’s going to get tight.

Excellent article though - definitely on the money. I’ve owned several different businesses, both retail and service provider. Cash flow is king no matter what you do…

If you’re not yet convinced imagine a situation I just went through last month: Things had been going well and I was working on several jobs (around a dozen actually) and money was good. I could’ve easily taken the money home and spent it on Christmas or a new Powerbook but I built up a cash reserve for emergencies.

Then my hard drive crashed and my backup system was not configured correctly, so I didn’t have a backup. All my work - client files, contacts, email. Gone. It cost me $2000 to get the data back by sending the hard drive to a data recovery company. A lot of companies wouldn’t have had an EXTRA $2000 laying around for emergency expenses.

I’m building my reserve back up - I wan to have about 2 months personal living expenses and 2-3 months business expenses in reserves in case something happens. Better safe than sorry!!

RyanA 13 Dec 05

Lack of cashflow eventually killed off my freelancing business and had me working more hours for less money than any of my previous employment arrangements. My younger sister was making more per hour than me serving coffee at a local cafe.

I’d also attribute the failure to not making more effort to build a broad base of clients. When your only serious client knows that he’s paying your bills…

Diversify your clients, man!

Bogdan Manolache 13 Dec 05

Great articles … I can’t wait for the next one in this series. Thumbs up!

Mark 13 Dec 05

In regards to Brandon and RyanA’s comments -

Also part of Small Biz 101, it’s not only about the cash flow. It’s also about the profit.

You can have great, king like, cash flow and low profits, or high profits and low cash flow, and still go out of business quick, having lost your shirt in the process.

The key (trick) is to have high cash flow AND high profits. Not always a simple thing to do.

Brian 13 Dec 05

I’m curious to what the consensus on barter is. I’ve found it difficult to get advantageous agreements, mostly because the people I barter with may not appreciate the true value of the services they receive in exchange. I’ve come to feel that I’d rather get paid (perhaps at a friendly discount to foster the relationship) and then use the money to buy the services I would have “bartered” for if needed (and hopefully at the same discount).

Brady Joslin 13 Dec 05

I think one important note to add here is that a company can be profitable, but still run into cash flow issues. Timing of incoming and outgoing payments is crucial to the health of a company.

I’d also add look out taking up debt when starting a company. Keep aware of the payback schedule. Betting on future profits to cover future repayments can be a risky proposition, and can knock the feet out from under the company as it comes out of the gates.

Travis Vocino 13 Dec 05

One problem I see some startups run into when making projections is too much loyalty, believe it or not. The bottom line is, you need to get paid.

When a group of 20-somethings get together on a new startup the first thing they do (in this sector anyway) is say “Well, I can put off getting paid, let’s put everything in the business.” Way to go, but this is somewhat unrealistic. Even if you honestly plan on being drop-dead loyal to the company and turning those profits around, you should still be making accurate salaries (or whatever method suits you) in your initial projections.

When it comes time to hire an “outsider” like a CFO or publicist, the dollars needed to support their realistic salary all of the sudden seem extravagant.

In my opinion, good salary projections (or goals there of) from the start help set the realistic goals needed to move forward. The end-game scenario isn’t a 100% turn-around of profit to the company, so likewise neither should your projection.

As the original post says, keep it real.

Baeck 13 Dec 05

@Bob:

I’m not so sure that Brandon *didn’t* have a back-up system in place. He just apparently didn’t check to see that it was backing up everything properly. Strongspace wouldn’t solve that problem. I guess the moral there would be to check your backups every so often to make sure they are correct!

kayvaan 13 Dec 05

Great post. It’s nice to see geeks thinking business. The cash conversion cycle is very important (CCC is basically the time it takes the firm to convert activities requiring cash into cash returns). An upward trend in CCC is bad. Downward trend is good. Managing receivables is key.

Another *KEY* thing to note - growth is not always good. Growing too fast kills many small companies. Growth typically pushes CCC upward. If a company does not plan well for growth it can be killed by it.

jm 13 Dec 05

Another good post, Ryan. Allow me to add another note, if I may.

In the localization industry, we make a lot of payments to translators, often before we collect on the project invoices. So, we get crunched on both ends.

Two things you need to be sure of are 1) the payment terms in the original estimate; many large corporations are flexing their muscles and paying net 45 (which is usually 45 days plus the next pay cycle) and 2) the cost of ‘financing the gap.’

Point 2 means that you basically pay for a client’s project until they reimburse you. If the gap is large, the cost of the invoice needs to rise in order to compensate. Watch the numbers and charge more for invoices that take longer to get paid; a savvy watch will show that the longer the gap, the more time you’re spending chasing it anyway.

JF 13 Dec 05

Something I’ll add. Always pay YOUR bills on time. Other businesses depend on your cash flow just as you depend on theirs. Do the right thing and hopefully others will too.

Chuck Roast 13 Dec 05

I’d like to add my two cents: Perhaps Rule #1 for a start-up should be to figure out your monthly overhead and don’t start up until you have six months’ to a year’s worth in the bank (after all of your start-up expenses like legal, equipment, etc.).

Like the saying goes, no generalization is worth a damn, including this one. Many successful businesses have started up with less in the bank and adhering too strictly to this rule might dissuade you from starting something worth starting. But keep it in mind.

PS. And just assume all of your customers will take 90 days to pay.

Sally Carson 13 Dec 05

First of all, I want to give a shout out to a fellow Carson - holla!! We are a rare breed.

Anywhoo, great article and comments! I’m wondering what everyone thinks is a good cushion to have in savings before taking the plunge. I’ve been told save up 6 months living expenses before diving in, does that sound about right to everyone?

GO CARSONS!! :)

Dan Carson 13 Dec 05

Whoa. ‘Sup Carsons! Never knew there were so many of us…

Hey, I don’t have any plans to venture out into the freelance world on my own right now… But this definitely has been an informative read, thanks!

sb 13 Dec 05

chuck-

i agree that it’s impossible to generalize a set number because it depends so much on the business. i wouldn’t consider making the plunge on a product that doesn’t have a good first customer. i won’t get involved if the first customer alone won’t pay a fairly large percentage of the bills. and, once again, my model works for me, in my situation, selling high-dollar proprietary products.

i have a quick metric:

if i can dev/support x customers and x customers produce y revenue, is y a number that transcends my best case scenario? if that equation doesn’t balance, it’s bad business. either i’m not charging enough, the product isn’t tight enough, the product is too complicated, or i haven’t hired the right customers. or it’s just a bad idea. that happens sometimes.

on a different thread, my belief is that initial product dev is finished before a company gets started. without something to sell, why open the doors in a formal manner? that’s where i’ve seen companies waste tons of money. if the product can’t be developed for close to nothing on borrowed time, it’s probably not a winner for a small, nimble group.

don’t get me started on apple cinema displays. and nice furniture. if i walk into a startup and there’s a lot of nice stuff, i just shake my head… i used to walk across the hall and borrow our neighbor’s $5,000 sony dv cam. they were gone within a year. (they weren’t in the video business, they just thought it’d be nice to have one. just in case.)

Patrick Keenan 13 Dec 05

I have heard that it is better to concentrate on making more money than on saving it. The possibility to make moeny is virtually unlimited, whereas the possibility to save much has a definite cap.
Just a thought.

Dana Epp 13 Dec 05

I think you may be missing a couple of critical items in the cashflow that seriously impacts the ability to measure the growth and success of your business.

A portion of revenue SHOULD be reinvested into the company by way of marketing and advertising. As an ISV that learned this the hard way, not allocating for such things means you are really acting more like a consultant than a business owner. Maybe thats ok with you. But I would rather work ON my business than IN it. I don’t want to be a slave to my company… I want the company to serve me. And that requires investment in growth.

What I have been doing is using the performance metrics taken from Softletter Financial Handbook (http://www.softletter.com/) and applying the industry averages to my business. Then I adjust accordingly as I see fit.

In my case, I reinvest 10% of the previous months revenue into advertising, and 10% into marketing. From that I can then build a bottom-line pricing grid showing sales revenue against variable and fixed expenses to figure out what I need to be profitable.

Bottom-line pricing grids can be calculated directly from the cash flow to make critical decisions in pricing and job opportunity. Sometimes the only way to be able to say “no” is by knowing what has the biggest impact on what REALLY matters in the business… the net profit line. Gross profit is nice and all… but its NET profit that you need to really care about moving forward.

YMMV of course.

MonkeyT 13 Dec 05

I’ve been an underling in three different startups/turnarounds (various sizes). Every one of them failed because the owners took too much money out of the operation too soon. When we started our own company, the rules were simple: As a company, we would eat what we killed. Our initial personal earnings were actually repayment of our initial investments in the company (the company was in debt only to us, its owners) as a percentage of sales, and not a very high percentage at that. Everything else went back in. It was not fun for those first few years, but it really keeps your finger on the company’s pulse.

I’ll second many of the ideas found here: No debt if you can manage it; barter when advantageous; used equipment is a godsend; pay your bills promptly; rattle the cages of the overdue politely but quickly; and be VERY aware of seasonal payment patterns of your customers.

The single most powerful tool in your arsenal is your available billing methods. Up front payment is cash in hand (that’s good!): offer a discount. Long term payment is steady, predictable income (also good!) but more risk: charge interest. Their own bank wouldn’t carry their debt for free, why shouldn’t you? Build these into your pricing matrix: it keeps your basic rates respectable, which will keep larger customers from seeing you as cheap labor (Remember, they can still feel like they’re “taking advantage of you” by paying up front!).

BizCoach 13 Dec 05

I like the concept in the spreadsheet I’ve used it with my clients with the following tweaks:

1. Do this weekly - not monthly at least for the next 5-6 weeks and montly after that for 4-6 months. Update it every week.
2. For expenses, put names of vendors rather than categories. If you have to ask for extensions in terms you’ll need to do this individually, so names help.
3. Group the income by relevant categories - in some companies that may mean by customer names, others by types of goods sold, in others by types of marketing. But some way that you can use to influence management decisions.
4. Keep a cumulative row along the bottom. Especially if you’re going to hit a couple months of negative cash flow - you’ll want to know before hand what the total hit will be so you don’t think the light at the end of the tunnel is closer than it is. You’ll see how bad it gets and how long before you’re earned that much back.

Bob Aman 13 Dec 05

True, though I personally set up a script to back up all of my code to Strongspace every hour. That script also verifies that the backup has occurred and drops a Growl notification via ruby-growl if the backup didn’t occur successfully (say, because I lacked a net connection, for example).

That’s all possible simply because of the way the Strongspace system is set up, especially having the ability to use rsync. Most other backup solutions would have a great deal more trouble automating something like that.

Plus I also keep a great deal of stuff in an off-site Subversion repository.

subterfudge 13 Dec 05

I must confess I haven’t really read your post.. but then again I know what you’re talking about. I have a mayor in computer science and now a couple of years later I’ve decided to to take an MBA exam too.. cash flow is a important concept. Keep track of the cash flow, plan it at least 6 months ahead.. also keep in mind everything that can go wrong. This will influens your ability to invest.. and that is one of the cash flows analysis purposes.. don’t invest if you dont have the money =)

ASalk 13 Dec 05

I spent six years in one of the toughest small businesses of all, freelance writing. And I found that the key to success and steady cashflow was making sure that you had checks coming to you in the mail from at least 4-5 solid customers at any given time. Some people make the mistake in assuming that the one big hit will take them over the top. Sometimes that big hit doesn’t come or the big hit pays late or not at all. My advice is to make sure that you have as many irons in the fire as possible and spread out your risk of non-payment as widely as possible. This can be hard in, say, a software project, but its still doable; you just do a couple of other projects at the same time which are more like paychecks (work for hire) than real products.

Alex Pacin 13 Dec 05

So far, so good, Ryan. My father left a large company to start his own business and he’s always stressed to me the importance of being liquid now. Money on the street doesn’t keep the lights on. I really enjoy your practical, yet positive comments on an often glorified topic. Keep it coming. I’ve got tens of people who read my blog looking forward to your next installment :) Thank you.

Anonymous Coward 14 Dec 05

“Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king”. Don’t know who said, but never a truer word spoken. Many profitable businesses go bust due to poor cash flow management.

Offering discounts for early payment works if it is part of the deal from the outset. In my experience offering a discount to extract a cheque from a customer already in arrears comes across as desperate. Companies pay slowly for lots of reasons, but offering a few pounds or dollars discount is not usually the leverage that works.

On credit control. Have a strict process for chasing sales invoices with professional communication at each stage (email, letters, calls) and clear escalation timings/steps. It is (the final) part of the sales process, so just like in selling it is important to get the client to commit to the next step - “So we have just agreed that you will look at your cash flow and give me a firm date for payment by this Friday? Good, I will confirm that in an email”. Once the client begins making commitments like this, actually writing and sending a cheque becomes a smaller step for them, plus they become accustomed with meeting the commitments that they make to to you.

I have found that credit control can be time consuming. Rather than hire a book keeper (Ryan - love the stay small mantra), outsource credit control to a small firm of accountants or a specialist. It doesn’t cost much and you can use online tools to track where they are in the chasing process. It also keeps you one step removed from day to day invoice chasing, so you become a point of escalation in the credit control process.

Mat Atkinson 14 Dec 05

Oops. Anonymised the comment.

“Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king”. Don’t know who said, but never a truer word spoken. Many profitable businesses go bust due to poor cash flow management.

Offering discounts for early payment works if it is part of the deal from the outset. In my experience offering a discount to extract a cheque from a customer already in arrears comes across as desperate. Companies pay slowly for lots of reasons, but offering a few pounds or dollars discount is not usually the leverage that works.

On credit control. Have a strict process for chasing sales invoices with professional communication at each stage (email, letters, calls) and clear escalation timings/steps. It is (the final) part of the sales process, so just like in selling it is important to get the client to commit to the next step - “So we have just agreed that you will look at your cash flow and give me a firm date for payment by this Friday? Good, I will confirm that in an email”. Once the client begins making commitments like this, actually writing and sending a cheque becomes a smaller step for them, plus they become accustomed with meeting the commitments that they make to to you.

I have found that credit control can be time consuming. Rather than hire a book keeper (Ryan - love the stay small mantra), outsource credit control to a small firm of accountants or a specialist. It doesn’t cost much and you can use online tools to track where they are in the chasing process. It also keeps you one step removed from day to day invoice chasing, so you become a point of escalation in the credit control process.

Tim Almond 14 Dec 05

I would generally advise against bartering, unless you really trust the person to get around to their side of the bargain quickly.

If you’ve done your side of the bargain, what’s the incentive for the other person to get around to doing theirs, over the people who are paying them cash?

I have a few “mutual” customers (my lawyer gets me to do odd bits of coding and training of their staff, and they write me contracts) and we deal with invoices/cash.

Pat Price 14 Dec 05

Tim Almond’s suggestion of providing a discount to customer is something that you need to really look at. I have worked in the senior managements ranks for the past 10 years. Most customers when offered say a 2% discount for payment in 10 days will “always” take the discount when they pay out past 30 days. If you this the discount will initiate early payment think again. Before offering a discount see if you can find other vendors that are selling to the customer and try to solicit their experience.

Dan Herold 14 Dec 05

Good article. Agree with comment by Pat Price - research before offering a discount on payment terms. Many large companies will pay at 60-180 days and take the discount for net 10 terms. Have had this happen with several of the Fortune 50 companies with my small business.

Abdelrahman Osama 17 Dec 05

You can’t imagine how did I benefited from this post.
First of all I thought it doesn’t matter if I fill this table with my data or not, but after filling it, I saw an unexpected results, that it keeps me re-think on every thing, Thanks a lot.

John Chen 18 Dec 05

Ryan, thank you for the post and I also enjoyed reading all the responses.

I have a big favour to ask you and people on this blog: can you take a look of my one year old company to see if my business model makes sense?

My wife and I started a company about one year ago with 100% self finance. For the first year, we opeated from our basement and two of us worked full time for our company. During the first year operation, we made a profit of $260,000 before tax.

Start from Jan.1, 2006, we plan to move to a warehouse/office space and hire up to 4 people by March 15, 2006. We calculated that we can break-even next year if the business maitains at the current pace. However, we think that our business will double next year, that is why we are hiring ahead?

Does our strategy make sense to you? Or is it better that we still operate from basement and not hire other people? Your opinion is much appreciated.

John

Angus McDonald 19 Dec 05

I think two things make a big difference to cash flow:

1. Make your terms shorter than 30 days (or whatever the usual is).

2. Hire a polite pitbull to chase money for you.

You can’t always get #1, but it is always worth TRYING to get it.

In terms of #2 you may need to hunt around, but such a person is a gem. For a start it means someone other than the owners/principals of the business are chasing money. If a client complains you can always say “Gee that doesn’t sound right, normally he/she only chases people that are late …” It’s amazing how it helps you have a sweet relationship with your clients when you are not the one calling them.

It also helps to have someone who has the right sort of tenacious personality (I’ve found a Dutch lady who is great at this!). They need to not give up, be bold and up-front about their need to have the invoice paid on time, and they need to persistently remind the person about what they said they would do.

As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease … just make sure you’re that wheel!

Frank 19 Dec 05

Throw nickles around like manhole covers during your first 5 years.

kenny 11 Jan 06

heklli i,m kenny i want to no mora about the chade flow and iwll like
i will bneed cheque

Berna 09 Feb 06

Thankyou very much for the data but i was requesting that you draw acash flow staement at least otherwise thanks for the mateial and keep up.

Jon 19 Apr 06

Great article !!
I find in ofcors in
www.google.com : )

To�o 13 May 06

Great article, i also taking now a course for entrepreneurs and realy this things are out of the Computer Science degree.

Thanks for you dedication to this blog.

Jeff Stephens 22 May 06

I find most banks nowadays are offering very large lines of credit for businesses with good credit ratings. Even if you do not have access to that, corporate credit cards can be obtained using your personal credit rating. These have been invaluable in my business for managing cash flow shortfalls.

Mark Hawkins 19 Jun 06

Factoring is also a good way to keep on top of cash flow issues.

yo 25 Jun 06

noentiendinada

Dw 26 Jun 06

Cheers for the Damn informative Bloggy Ryan.
and thanks to the posters for their comments too!

Hopefully with the info gained here may help keep my kids fed and watered, and maybe a Viper in the driveway in a couple of years!

Tnx All

Gordon Montgomery 07 Aug 06

So Mr. Carson what do you think about buying stuff for yourself/business so that you can use it to offset the tax due to income?

Or do you still stick to your buy nothing approach?

Gordon Montgomery 07 Aug 06

So Mr. Carson what do you think about buying stuff for yourself/business so that you can use it to offset the tax due to income?

Or do you still stick to your buy nothing approach?

alayına isyan 30 Aug 06

alayına isyan

tugay 01 Sep 06

naberyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

alex 03 Sep 06

I agree with To�o!

taktuk_1990 10 Sep 06

……