20 Easy Ways to Save Money in Your Business

Is your company struggling financially?

Can your company meet its bills as they land? Can your company extend budget for stock or investments? Does your company often find it’s required to make cutbacks in some areas to financially support others?

Realistically, if you find that your company has any issues when it comes to finances, then it is time to assess what that means for you and your company.

20 easy ways to save you money:

Read on to see if any of the following could get the money back in your pocket.

1. Set up a daily cash flow report to control all cash in and out; this may help protect you from wrongful trading, as it stops bounced cheques.

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2. Make sure that all purchases are approved by you, or that you are aware of approvals made. You should sign all cheques or approve all BACS/CHAPS payments.

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3. Take time to evaluate purchase orders for yourself. If you are not directly responsible for procurement, at least give yourself the chance to ensure your business is not paying over the odds for goods or service.

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4. If you or anyone in your business draws petty cash be sure YOU know when and how much. You could even set about such that no petty cash is drawn from the bank unless you personally go and get it. This way, you will be more likely to question where every pound is spent.

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5. Review all expenses claims by the staff and reject all that are not really necessary. This could also mean looking at where you spend the business’ money.

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6. Remember survival is key; do not worry if you lose people or profits that are not vital. Profits will soon flow again from using very tight cash flow management. If cash is tight, tough decisions will need to be forced, but don’t back down.

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7. Ask every supplier for a review of their prices – are they able to cut you a better deal? Also ask them for a few extra weeks payment grace, or ask for regular monthly payments.

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8. Speak to the landlord for a breather on the rent. Are able to pay monthly for a while rather than quarterly? Putting yourself in arrears is likely to be ok at this stage. Most landlords are very keen to retain their tenant in these terrible recessionary times.

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9. Ask your accountants to accept monthly installments. It may be that you need someone to do your bookkeeping for you.

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10. Get someone else’s view if you have a trusted friend or mentor. If so, talk to them about your business; they may suggest cost savings that hadn’t occurred to you.

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11. Do you need that company car? Can you use your own personal car? It may save you a lot of personal tax too.

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12. Can you sell any assets to raise cash? Make sure they’re not owned by a leasing company first.

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13. If you are factoring or invoice discounting, ask your factors to cut their costs, and only drawdown funds weekly.

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14. Cut ALL overtime; why do you need it? Is your production planning so poor or weak? If you need more people then hire them, but at lower rates.

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15. If you need to make redundancies and cannot afford them, use the DBIS (DTI) Hardship Scheme.

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16. Ask HMRC for a Time to Pay (TTP) Deal before you build up arrears.

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17. Use the internet to buy or price everything you can to get fantastic value over the net.

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18. Work all hours possible to build the recovery plan. It’s your business, and you are the one that can save it.

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19. Keep minutes or notes of all decisions and action plans. It’s essential that no idea is forgotten – this saves time in future when trying to re-think that great idea you had.

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20. Whether you’re a large or small company, the process is the same. It has worked for others and it could work for you too… take no prisoners, work hard, manage cash flow and you will hopefully lead your business out of the dark times.

Final thoughts

We hope there is something in here that you may not yet have thought of, which could help your company regain much needed cash.

We always encourage that, if your business is beginning to present problems, business owners should do all they can to seek help from specialists rather than wait or try to let things sort themselves out.

All it takes is a non-obligation phone call to find out if we can help. If something needs to give, do all you can to get the best help available for your business.