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10 Ideas to Beat the Credit Crunch

Newsletter issue - November 08.

If your business is feeling the pinch in this general economic downturn, it's more important than ever to look at what you can do to help your business. Here's 10 ideas to get you started...

1. Get paid sooner! Encourage your customers to pay more quickly, by giving small discounts or just by chasing them promptly. Send out invoices for completed work as soon as possible, and for long term projects ask for stage payments on account.
2. Promote best value products. If you have a range of products or services, look at giving more prominence to the best value items in your marketing.
3. Talk to your bank. Keep your bank informed, especially if you are going to have a need to secure extra funding or even renew existing arrangements. If fees are being increased it may pay to shop around for facilities.
4. Take advantage of the crunch. If you are cash positive, turn the crunch to your advantage. Some businesses may be keener to make a sale so those with cash to spend may be able to negotiate some great bargains, especially for early payment!
5. Staffing needs and working hours. Consider asking staff to change their working hours to part-time or flexi-time, with an appropriate drop in total pay. Or to take their holidays now if business is slow. If a skilled member of staff is about to retire ask them to stay on part time, as this may be cheaper than recruiting a new employee.
6. Office rent. Ask your landlord if you can change from a quarterly payment in advance to a monthly payment. Or with improvements in technology perhaps now is the time to consider if you could run your business from home and make use of home workers and lose the office rent altogether!
7. Don't forget the marketing. Whilst cutting back on costs can be necessary in a recession and it may be tempting to cut the marketing budget, it may prove a false economy if sales suffer. Whilst others cut back on their marketing, you may be able to use this to your advantage and keep on marketing to get a larger share of the present market.
8. Renegotiate with suppliers. Review the agreements you have with suppliers for continuing services, such as; security, energy, or cleaning. Can you renegotiate any of these contracts to get a better deal?
9. Reduce tax payments on account. Review the projected tax payments for your business. Payments on account for unincorporated businesses can be reduced and reclaimed if you are confident of the final taxable profit figure. This is a good reason for getting the accounts completed quickly after the year end.
10. Carry back losses. If your business is likely to make a loss for the current year, quantify that loss as soon as possible and submit a claim to carry back the loss to get a refund from HMRC.

If you would like to meet up to discuss these and other ideas as to what your business should be doing in the credit crunch, please contact us.