cashflow Archives - The CFO Centre Canada

Thriving in the New World Guardian

Published: by Matthew Booth

Thriving in the New World requires a CFO to expand their Guardian role for the organization. The CFO must see themselves driving the organization’s efforts to harness increasing levels of complexity while embedding behaviours and systems to defend against existing and emerging threats to business continuity.

Organizations of all sizes have relied on their financial leaders to develop internal control systems and financial compliance with taxation and regulatory bodies. The business owner and key stakeholders will better navigate the future by ensuring their financial leader is accountable for maximising the organization’s overall information integrity and for broadening the compliance framework.

Successfully achieving this broader mandate will require the CFO to elevate their collaboration and partnership with other functional leaders. Success will also depend on how intensely the leadership team commits to sharpening their ability to convert information into insight. There are two initiatives your CFO can pursue to create greater visibility of information related opportunities and potential compliance challenges.

Harnessing Digital Transformation

The recent pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation for every business. Over the past year, it has become clear that companies who want to win must consistently adopt emerging technologies to exploit the opportunities offered by digitization. Businesses who select the right solutions will convert the promise of richer information into higher revenue and lower costs.

It is likely your business is headed towards larger technology investment. Business leaders must, of course, rely on their technology advisors and their market oriented leadership to drive digital transformation; however, the contribution of the CFO should not be overlooked. Owners and CEOs should seek to pair their technology advisor with their financial advisor to ensure the technology selection process is sufficiently thorough and holistic.

Decision makers often desire greater amounts of information; however, there is no guarantee it leads to better decisions. For most organizations, their finance teams have the most experience in digesting large amounts of information and structuring it to make recommendations. Fostering collaboration between finance staff and your digital marketing leaders will promote more streamlined, more accurate, more actionable information.

Creating a Compliance Culture

The reality is that discussions regarding “compliance” are low on the excitement list for most individuals, and almost certainly not the driving force for most CEO’s or owner operators. For finance and operations teams, compliance may not be their primary passion; however, their functional success links directly to processes that ensure compliance requirements are visible and achieved. The challenge for compliance in a post pandemic world has grown. Workers remotely accessing business systems and confidential data puts greater pressure on protecting customer information and maintaining adherence to internal practices.

It is no surprise that the first step to creating a compliance culture begins with the leadership team. For many business the choice to task the CFO to take on compliance culture responsibilities will reinforce to employees the organization’s commitment to a disciplined overall compliance framework. Your CFO should bring a compliance mindset to the organization. Equally importantly, they should bring proven methods to establish compliance systems.

Once the initial building blocks of leadership commitment and senior level accountability are established, the CFO can work with their colleagues to put in place three additional elements that have proven effective in financial compliance. These elements are Visibility, Review and Corrective Action. These three elements have been essential for every finance leader to demonstrate a reliable compliance framework to tax authorities, regulatory bodies, and financial stakeholders.

Thriving in the New World Operator

Published: by annbeldia

In this series of Thriving in the New World, The CFO Centre explores what exactly it means to be an operator in the “new world” and essential elements that allow your business to thrive.

Most owner-operated businesses would agree that increased cash and more access to capital would help them exceed their business objectives. Recent societal and economic realities have strained or even exhausted cash resources for many companies. Even those companies enjoying unprecedented growth are scrambling to fund unexpected expansion. The essential building block for liquidity has always been Operational Excellence, defined as consistent and reliable execution of each business’ unique processes to acquire and satisfy customers.

High performing operations processes have always been the foundation for generating cash from within the business. Equally important for those business owners seeking to thrive in a post Covid world is the critical need to demonstrate operational excellence to third party financing sources. Seeking to expand your credit line with your bank or pursuing additional investors will require the business owner to present a clear and compelling story for how the company will produce profits, cash and sufficient return on capital.

The traditional role for a CFO in Operational Excellence is to provide accurate financial information and act as leading voice in cost reduction. Creating a truly reliable foundation for generating cash and profits; often requires financial leaders to contribute more than they have ever before. The experience, attributes and mindset of many CFO’s positions them to act as a catalyst for delivering cash and profit maximization across the full range of business processes.

Fix the Finance Foundation

The processes and practices of the finance function must be viewed as rock solid by the owner and the rest of the organization to create a path for participation or preferably leadership of broader operational improvement initiatives.

There are three key functional outcomes that must be in place to give the finance team the credibility to extend its involvement to other operational processes. Without these deliverables in place, the organization’s ability to undertake deeper process review will be severely impaired.

The first base level capability is timely, accurate and useful financial reporting. If the leaders of the company are not receiving this level of financial reporting, then it is unlikely that the finance leader has earned the right to apply their team’s expertise to general operating processes.

The second must have competency from the finance team is an understanding of the cost drivers for the business. The understanding of costs does not have to be perfect; however, there must be a methodology in place to capture and analyze the complete range of items that form the cost of products or services

The third requirement for finance team effectiveness is to have a solid grasp of the company strategies that will drive future growth and success. If your finance staff are seen just as number crunchers it will be difficult for them to contribute to operational initiatives. The first installment of our CFO contribution series suggests a practical approach to engage your finance leader in developing future proofing strategies.

Own Cash Flow

The responsibility of generating positive cash flow clearly belongs to the CEO and the entire organization; however, expanding the mindset of your financial leader to thinking and acting as the owner of cash flow can be a powerful tool. Finance and accounting staff have historically only been tasked with producing cash flow forecasts based on inputs from other leaders.

We suggest making a clear organization signal showing reliance on the finance team to go beyond analyzing cash inputs and outputs. The new expectation should include concrete actions aimed at increasing the amount or timing of cash inputs while reducing the amount or timing of cash outputs. One example of a high impact cash inflow recommendation is to convert the finance team’s experience with both external and internal obstacles to timely collection of receivables into operational practices that eliminate these obstacles in advance.

Refine and Revolutionize Business Processes

Each organization varies in complexity of business processes, capabilities of process analysis, and often very different levels of CEO interest or prioritization of process improvement initiatives. Given the nature of many small to medium-sized organizations, there can often be aptitude and attitude gaps leading to under prioritizing detailed data-driven process review work.

Even a small finance team can become the internal champions for generating improved results achieved through documenting and enhancing your most critical processes. Elevating the CFO to, at minimum, a shared level of ownership with the firm’s operational leaders will apply complementary expertise to process review efforts. Converting process improvements into additional cash and profit can often involve just a few additional questions that may be missed by other functional areas.

Create Compelling Capital Acquisition Content

There is a high probability that pursuing operational excellence will lead to capturing more cash from optimized processes and deliver positive returns in the short term.

The longer-term benefit of intense CFO involvement in the operational aspects of the company is the ability to work with the owner to put a more convincing investment case forward to potential sources of debt or equity financing. Revenue growth is understandably the primary focal point for future investment; however, the business case is significantly strengthened by a tangible action plan showcasing gross margin enhancement, profit improvement and positive cash generation.

Reviewing, examining and revising processes has always been part of running a successful enterprise. Although most companies have made improvements over the life of their business; there is often a substantial opportunity to further optimize the organization’s capability to convert every dollar of revenue into more profit and more cash. One of the positive byproducts of the turmoil related to the pandemic is that business owners, management and employees are more aware and likely more open to the need for change than ever before. The time is right for businesses to count on their CFO to bring a thorough, disciplined methodology to deliver operational excellence and improved financial results. Uncover more.

Thriving in a New World Strategist

Published: by annbeldia

In the introduction to our CFO Contribution Series, Thriving In the New World Strategist, we suggested that most business owners may not be well served by high-level, third party driven, divergent strategic exercises. Certainly, there is significant value in undertaking far reaching, blue sky thinking. Most small to medium size organizations will be better served by incorporating their own foresight into targeted, most probable future scenarios developed by highly engaged participants directly linked to the success of the business.

There can be no doubt the Covid 19 pandemic has led to unprecedented change for most businesses. Revenue levels have plunged for some firms while others are experiencing unexpected increases in new customers and unforecasted demand levels. Supply Chains have been disrupted. Optimizing employee productivity and satisfaction have become more art than science. Short-term cash availability and long term capital requirements are highly uncertain. Even the most confident experts are reluctant to make a call on the economic climate we are likely to experience a year from now or even six months from now.

Success in this uncharted New World requires business owners to make effective decisions to address today’s challenges and to establish a strong market position in an uncertain future. We call this Future Proofing your business. The path forward will be unique for every enterprise. For most businesses, the contribution of an integrated senior financial leader can be a major factor in making the best decisions for steering the business towards a successful future.

Owner operators will particularly benefit by injecting their full time or part time CFO into idea

generation and implementation planning to future proof their business using the following four-step process.

Developing Most Probable Future Scenarios

The insight of the CEO along with sales and market-oriented management will understandably be

essential to develop and select three or four most likely market scenarios. Important dimensions for assessing your business’ future would include revenue outlook, new revenue sources, changes in access to customers or preferences of customers, competitive forces, regulatory factors and assessment of staff effectiveness. Identifying these factors specific to your business and your industry should be considered in conjunction with the team’s projections of potential future operating environments.

Involving a holistic professional with the ability to stretch the team’s future thinking to include the full spectrum of potential obstacles often leads to more robust, more complete future scenarios. Team members should expect the organization’s financial leader to embrace the uncertainties inherent in guessing at potential futures while also expecting them to act as a catalyst to describe the leading scenarios with sufficient clarity to facilitate resiliency testing and implementation planning.

Leveraging Emerging Technology

The pace of change over the past five to ten years combined with the recent accelerated societal and economic changes linked to the pandemic forces all businesses to adapt and respond quicker and more intensively than ever before. Adapting and responding effectively requires timely and appropriate application of emerging technology solutions to uncover new connections to customers and to unlock methods to streamline and enhance business processes.

A few of the more pervasive and perhaps highest potential technology trends destined to shape the future are Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain Technology and Internet of Things. Finance leaders bring essential analytical skills, as well as opportunity and risk assessment expertise. These attributes will help the business select the most advantageous solutions and deploy these applications to deliver favourable returns.

Stress Testing Scenarios and Strategies

Once the business has collaboratively generated their high probability future scenarios and articulated corresponding strategies to maximize results; a critical need emerges for disciplined evaluation to ensure the selected paths forward can stand up to expected obstacles and deviations.

The CFO’s involvement in scenario testing is likely to be most accepted and welcomed by the business owner and the future proofing team. A New World CFO is one that passionately embraces uncertainties and optimism while maintaining their proven ability to rigorously apply a check and balance approach to the team’s chosen future scenarios and strategies.

Commitment to Highest Impact Initiatives

The hardest decision for many organizations undertaking future proofing activities during today’s tumultuous environment will be to commit the necessary financial and human resources to those chosen few initiatives expected to best position the business over the next six months to five years.

Creating the internal and external confidence to act now often hinges on the development of concise, compelling business cases to define the initiative, its costs and expected profits. The involvement of your financial leader in the entire future proofing process will significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of these strategic business cases. In situations where the organization is seeking external financing or participation from partnering organizations; the voice of an informed, engaged, credible CFO will be a significant factor in securing the desired external support.

Business owners and their management teams have the responsibility to navigate the firm through today’s urgent challenges and opportunities. They also bear the greater responsibility to establish direction and take action to prepare the organization to succeed for many years ahead. A New World CFO welcomes this responsibility and possesses the knowledge and dedication needed to deliver results today and in the future. Discover more.

Introducing the Thriving in the New World Series

Published: by annbeldia

Thriving in the New World series is The CFO Centre’s unique approach on how we can truly make a difference to your business. Explore how a transformational CFO, as a Strategist, Operator, Leader and Guardian, is essential to future proof your business.

The Covid-19 pandemic has transported almost every business into a new reality with greater obstacles and greater, or certainly different, opportunities. Many business owners are operating at ground level to address challenges that threaten the livelihood of their employees, the continuity of their customers and the future of their business.

Now is not the time for strategic retreats, or high-level consulting reviews. Entrepreneurs that thrive in this new world will be those that combine their experience and knowledge with the insights and expertise of involved, committed individuals. These entrepreneurs will possess the mindset to navigate each day’s most pressing issues while charting the course for the business to move forward.

Now is the time to ensure your business is enjoying the leadership and hands on guidance of a New World CFO. Accenture defines the new CFO as a “value-oriented individual who views the world through a different lens” . They see themselves as value architects whose primary focus is helping the organization drive profitable growth.

All businesses have staff or advisors in place to manage the financial requirements of their business.

Perhaps more than ever before, businesses of all sizes, and all stages of development will benefit from finance oriented leadership that goes far beyond the numbers, far beyond basic reporting and far beyond being the controller or watchdog for the business.

If you own and operate a small to medium-sized business, you may have gotten by without access to the “C” level expertise of an experienced CFO. Thriving in your new world may require access to a proven, holistic financial leader driven to grow your business profitably.

This four-part – New World CFO series will provide specific, understandable and implementable information designed to help your business thrive and survive. Uncover more about the benefits of futureproofing.

Strategic Funding – Where To Find The Capital Your Business Needs

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Funding growing businesses is one of the major challenges any entrepreneur and business owner will face, and while there is an increasingly vast array of options available, figuring out how to access these funds can be a very time consuming, frustrating experience, even for the most seasoned business owner.

Whether you need working capital to support your growth, raise funds for a push into a new market, introduce a new product range or even have a requirement to raise funds for a new business venture, figuring out what you need to do and where to go can be difficult. With the advantage of “doing this for a living”, this report summarizes the process and points you in the right direction in terms of funding providers and where to go to get the independent specialist advice you are likely to need.

Highlights

Which type of funding will suit your needs?
Sources of funding (including advantages and disadvantages of each one).
Where to get independent specialist advice on your funding options and presenting your case for the best chance of success.

Introduction
Whether you need $1,000 or $10 million, there are only two kinds of finance: equity, whereby you are raising money in exchange for for ownership of the company, and debt which is borrowed money. The first step in raising capital is to decide between equity or debt. In the SME world, the choice usually depends on the preference of the business owner and stage of the company.

If you want to maintain total control, you are typically going to prefer a debt driven funding route: however if you are less worried about control, bringing in equity funds can often mean you grow faster. This can be a good route, particularly where you have a very clear exit in mind and this exit lines up with other equity providers.

In most SMEs the entrepreneur or business owner is the person who looks for funding the business needs. When raising debt finance, our experience is that banks are still the most frequent form of funding used, but increasingly owners are hearing about and starting to use new forms of finance outside of traditional banks. This so called alternative funding market is growing rapidly, and has more than doubled in size year on year from £267 million in 2012 to £666 million in 2013 to £1.74 billion in 2014, according to the “UK Alternative Finance Industry Report”.¹

Equity financing can come from individuals, so called angel investors, and traditional venture capital firms. Depending on your ambitions, there is also the option to combine both debt and equity in a funding mix to provide the capital base for long term growth and the working capital to support working capital requirements in the business.

While there is copious advice for those businesses seeking to raise funds for start-ups, this report focuses particularly on the challenges facing mid sized companies who are past start up and need funds to continue to grow (those with annual revenues between £2M and £50M, or employing staff between 10 and 250 employees).

Sources of funding for mid-sized business

Bank Operating Line of Credit

For many businesses the bank operating line of credit remains the traditional form of funding, with relationships formed over many years.

Although lines of credit can be quick to set up, the biggest drawback is that they can be called in by the bank on demand. So when things aren’t going well and you need the facility, that’s just the time when the bank might demand repayment, particularly if you haven’t built a strong relationship with the bank, so they understand what’s going on in your business.

Loans

A bank term loan will have a maturity date and require principal repayments over a fixed period of time (typically 2 – 5 years). As long as you payback the money per the terms of the loan, the advantage is that the bank can’t demand repayment, although typically the business and usually the owner will need to offer strong security for the loan, usually secured on the assets of the business and often the owners personal assets, by way of a personal guarantee.

As with operating lines of credit, the irony is that the more profitable and cash generative your business is, the less likely the bank’s requirements for security.

The principle is straightforward: if your business has performed well over the years and the bank has confidence that performance will be continued, then the easier it is to borrow money against security, or in some cases simply the cash flows of the business.

Invoice Discounting (Factoring)

Invoice discounting, also referred to as factoring, has grown in popularity in recent years. Banks and other specialist invoice discounting firms lend money which is secured by your accounts receivable, so if the company fails, the bank or specialist firm has more security than in the case of a conventional credit line.

With invoice discounting, you effectively sell your outstanding business invoices to a third party. You get the cash flow benefit by receiving a percentage of the money immediately (usually around 80%) and the rest when the money is collected.

Invoice financing can be really beneficial for growing businesses and can help you to bridge the gap between the delivery of goods or services and the payment from your customer.

Asset Financing

An important consideration of financing, is the overall mix of funding a company uses. Asset financing can be used for funding fixed assets such as plant and machinery, equipment, computers and vehicles. All the main banks have asset financing arms and there are also many specialist companies in this space. The bank or finance company takes security of the asset as their protection. This form of financing has the benefit that it is pretty easy to arrange, assuming the assets you are buying are standard.

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1 ‘Understanding Alternative Finance: The UK Alternative Industry Report 2014’, Baeck, Peter; Collins, Liam; Zhang, Bryan, Nesta & The University of Cambridge, November 2014

How a part-time CFO can help you to resolve your cash flow problems

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The CFO Centre will provide you with a highly experienced senior CFO with ‘big business experience’ for a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO. This means you will have:

One of Canada’s leading CFOs, working with you on a part-time basis
A local support team of the highest calibre CFOs
A national and international collaborative team of the top CFOs sharing best practice (the power of hundreds)
Access to our national and international network of clients and partners

With all that support and expertise at your fingertips, you will achieve better results, faster. It means you’ll have more confidence and clarity when it comes to decision- making. After all, you’ll have access to expert help and advice whenever you need it.

In particular, your part-time CFO will assess your company’s cash flow position and take the following steps:

Identify all the immediate threats to your business

A part-time CFO will look for all those things that could plunge your company into serious financial trouble if they’re not addressed immediately.

These could be factors such as the payment of wages or salaries, the payment of taxes or the payment on a due date for vital goods, etc.

Address those imminent threats

Your CFO will look for ways you can meet your most pressing financial requirements and buy the company more time. This might involve:

Chasing late-paying customers. To encourage those customers to pay, consider offering a discount for immediate payment or asking them to pay immediately by credit card.
With invoice discounting and factoring, you’ll receive up to 85% of the value of the outstanding invoice, sometimes within 24 hours. You’ll receive the remaining 15% minus a fee once your customer has paid the outstanding invoice. An invoice discounting service can be confidential so that your customer will be unaware of the financier’s involvement. Factoring companies, however, undertake a full collection service (including sending out statements, making reminder calls and collecting payment), so your customers will be aware that you’re using their services.
Arranging short-term loans or operating line of credit with your bank.
Considering other funding sources besides banks and other lending institutions such as self-finance, or loans from family and friends, partners, investors and alternative finance like peer–to–peer lending.
Asking for better terms from creditors. You may find they’re open to extending your repayment schedule.
Identifying and addressing the underlying problem.
Assess the business to identify the cause of the cash flow problems. Address those issues to avoid a similar situation occurring again.

Prevent cash flow problems from recurring

As well as identifying and resolving the imminent threats to your business, your CFO will review all inflows and outflows of cash to determine where improvements and savings can be made. This is likely to involve:

Working out your break-even sales figure (the number of sales required to cover total expenses without making a net profit).
This will mean reviewing your sales figures for the past six months to check that you exceeded that breakeven point. It’s then possible to calculate how much you’re likely to make in sales for the next two months. If you’re unlikely to break even, you’ll need to plan how to increase sales and reduce costs.
Looking for ways to increase your profit margins such as raising prices. You can do this without losing valuable customers by offering packages or bundles of goods or services.
Reducing your salary or personal draws from the business until your revenue improves.
Cutting costs. The beauty of cost-cutting is that it can be done in hours or days, unlike revenue-boosting measures which take longer to implement and to take effect. Such cost-cutting measures might include doing any of the following:
- Stopping work on non-critical capital projects.
- Reviewing your inventory and selling off obsolete, damaged, or discontinued products.
- Eliminating slow-moving products or less popular services from your line since selling unprofitable goods or services is likely to send you out of business faster.
- Negotiating price discounts for volume purchases from your suppliers.
- Consider downsizing. Bigger is not better if your company is always struggling to stay afloat. If your profit margins are consistently small, reassess your business goals. Rather than expansion, focus instead on profit.
- Ditching products or services with the lowest profit margins. This change of focus may mean you can also reduce the size of your borrowings, staff, advertising, and marketing campaigns, premises, etc.
- Reducing labor costs (without triggering a drop in productivity). Any cost-cutting measure that triggers a drop in staff morale will have negative consequences for productivity. Your CFO may advise you to defer salary increases and bonuses or to cut salaries from the top-down. You might also consider introducing a temporary freeze on overtime. Other measures might include lowering the number of employees through attrition or redundancies.
Speeding up the sales process. Your CFO will encourage you to accelerate the speed with which your customers’ purchase orders are converted into cash. In particular, you’ll be asked to consider what steps in the sales process can be combined or eliminated. For example, asking for payment at the time of the order, accepting credit card payments, or offering automatic account debiting.
Lowering miscellaneous expenses. You’ll be encouraged to find ways to make small savings on things like insurance policies, office rent, bank service charges, utilities, etc. Lots of small savings across the board can have a significant impact.
Refinancing your debt obligations. Your CFO might suggest approaching your lenders to see if you can lower your monthly payments on your term debt obligations by taking the remaining principal amount and spreading it out over a longer period.
Analyzing if you can outsource jobs or services. You’ll be asked to look at your operations to determine if any of your activities, services, or functions could be provided at less cost by an outside company or contractor.
Holding a sale of surplus or slow-moving inventory.
Approaching suppliers to negotiate better deals.
Asking your suppliers to take back excess inventory.
Selling off your underused assets and renting the equipment instead.¹

With all that support and expertise at your fingertips, you will achieve better results, faster. It means you’ll have more confidence and clarity when it comes to decision-making.

Improving credit control.

Your CFO will help you to get tighter controls over your credit. That will mean:

Getting written agreement to your credit terms before taking on new clients.
Many businesses are not clear about credit terms with their clients and often simply set out conditions on the face of the invoice, but that’s too late in the process. Instead, you should always ensure that an authorized representative of your customer has agreed to your credit terms in writing before you agree to supply products or services.
Carrying out credit checks on all new customers, no matter how large or influential they may appear.
Invoicing at the time of a sale or close to it. Instead of waiting for the month’s end to issue invoices do it daily or weekly.
Making sure your sales invoices are accurate. Unfortunately, some customers will use any excuse for not paying invoices on time and any inaccuracies (such as an incorrect address or date or no purchase order number) could be enough for them to justify delaying payment.
Treating the collection of monies owed as a high priority. If you haven’t already done so, set up a computerized system to provide notification of late payments.
Setting up an invoice dispute resolution process. It’s important that your company records any documentation related to invoice-related disputes. You should also keep a record of those customers who challenge their invoices or raise questions so it’s possible to see if any do this regularly as a way of avoiding settling their accounts.²

Investigate the use of regular cash flow forecasts

Your CFO will encourage you to use regular cash flow forecasts so you know how much cash is going to be needed in the coming months. It means you’ll know in advance if you’re likely to face a cash shortfall and can make arrangements for extra borrowing, or take other appropriate action.

It will also make it easier for you and your senior team to make decisions such as whether or not to:

Hire more staff
Change your prices
Move premises
Tender for a large contract
Find new suppliers.

You’ll be able to see at a glance the impact such decisions might have on your cash flow.

Cash flow forecasts can also highlight potential problems so that you have time to take action to avoid them.

Conclusion

Your cash flow keeps your business alive. Having control of your company’s cash flow which allows you to operate within your means, and move away from a ‘feast and famine’ situation is usually a huge relief to everyone within the business.

It means that decisions can be made and checked against the cash flow forecast to determine whether they are viable. This increased visibility can be introduced quickly and can have a hugely positive impact on the whole business.

It also means that reserves can be built up gradually to give the business a cushion and alleviate the stress of not knowing what lies around the next corner.

Having the right cash flow management processes in place and being able to spot peaks and troughs in trading to improve cash flow is one of the most critical components of any finance function.

Put an end to your cash flow problems now by calling The CFO Centre today.

tel: 1-800-918-1906
email: [email protected]
www.thecfocentre.ca

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1 ‘How to manage a cash crisis’, NAB (National Australia Bank) Ltd., 2011

2 ‘Top Tips for Enhancing Your Invoicing Process – and Avoiding Problems with Your Business Cashflow’, Finlay, Mitch, Talk Business magazine, www.talkbusiness.co.uk, Jan 2015

How your business can fly away from cash problems

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Do you ever feel that growing your business is like being a bird in a cage? Even if it’s a big cage, it’s still got its limits. For your business, that “cage” can be a lack of cash needed to let your business fly as high as it can.

It shows up when you’re hit with a lack of cash to hire new people, to move to larger premises, or to invest in R&D to upgrade your products. It’s your accountant warning that you’re short on money to make payroll or pay the rent, or your bank asking you to replenish your accounts.

Sometimes, cash flow issues intrude if business is slow, and your fixed payments such as rent and utilities eat up too much of the small amount of revenue that comes in.

But cash can also be a problem if your wildest dreams come true and you have too successful a business. If you need to hire staff, buy inputs like parts and raw materials, and buy and install equipment, that means a lot of cash going out if you’re to meet your customers’ needs (see our post on “Hypergrowth” for more on that).

Even if your customers pay right away, you’re still left holding your financial breath until that money’s in your bank. And you may need to hold your breath a lot longer if your customers take 30, 60 or even more days to pay.

Success-induced cash flow problems are particularly problematic for scale-up companies, because their cash shortages are often much larger than those of startups. Smaller companies can dig into their home equity, a personal line of credit or friends and family. But scale-ups’ cash demands are often too big for those startup-type solutions.

It’s like learning to swim – in the shallow end of the pool you can always put your feet on the bottom. But at the deep end, that’s not an option.

Learning how to deal with those deeper waters starts by understanding how your company can get into cash flow problems in the first place.

What causes cash flow problems?

According to the CFO Centre’s e-book “Cash Flow,” the main causes of cash flow issues are:

Slow-paying customers: Customers may be facing their own cash flow problems and may be inclined to drag their heels on paying your company. There’s often a gap between the time you pay for the inputs to your product – including paying your staff – and when your customers pay you. You may be reluctant to press for payment, partly because you don’t want to alienate or lose a customer, but some customers will take advantage of that.

High fixed costs: You may be paying too much in rent or payroll, because in the optimism of entrepreneurship, you expect to need that capacity sooner rather than later. But your “sooner” may be taking its time arriving. When in growth mode, you’re likely paying more for inputs and fixed costs than you’re bringing in as revenue, so all costs need to be monitored regularly to ensure that you’re not spending too much.

Your prices are too low: You may be trying to win customers, particularly in a market where prices are easily comparable, but if you’re not covering your costs or giving yourself a healthy margin, you risk running out of cash. Customers who choose only based on prices will likely jump to a competitor if you increase what you’re charging. Understanding your costs and developing your pricing model accordingly is critical.

Other common reasons include low sales volume, too-generous payment terms, bad debts and too much old inventory.

How to get the help you need to avoid cash flow problems

Most entrepreneurs would rather focus on growing the business than watching over the finances. That’s even more so as the business gets bigger, and the cash flow picture becomes more complex.

This means that growing companies can benefit from specialized financial expertise. Sometimes, that expertise is available within the company, but more often, it’s necessary to look outside.

A professional with financial expertise can help you recognize warning signs you may have missed as you focused on growing your business. This person can then help you find ways to deal with those issues, such as pressing customers for faster payment. There may also be opportunities for other ways to deal with your financial crunch such as vendor financing or R&D tax credits, that you may not have fully explored.

For many companies, that means a need for the skills of a Chief Financial Officer, but maybe without the price tag of a full-time CFO’s salary. A part-time CFO may be the answer – someone who is fully part of your leadership team, but on a basis that may range from a few days a month to a few days a week.

The CFO Centre’s “Cash Flow” book provides some suggestions on how to deal with possible cash flow problems, as well as describing your options as regards a part-time CFO.

Is the problem your company solves BIG enough?

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If you have ambitions to grow your small company into a large one, you need to make sure it has room to grow.

To see how that works, consider that humble box of baking soda in your refrigerator. Baking soda was originally developed for, well, baking. It solved a baker’s problem – the difficulty of getting baked goods to rise. But then, people discovered other problems the product solved – diaper rash, kitchen fires, grease stains … and refrigerator odors.

Manufacturers such as Arm & Hammer found demand for their product that was quite unrelated to their company’s original idea.

But what Arm & Hammer found out indirectly about solving wider and bigger problems, you need to do intentionally. How do you do that? Here’s a three-step process.

1. What problem(s) are you solving now?

You may have started your business to provide a specific product (such as baking soda) or service. But your customers may look at the situation quite differently. They’re looking to buy a solution to a problem they’re facing, like diaper rash or a carpet stain. Sometimes, it’s more than one problem – a box of baking soda helps bake cookies and helps clean the kitchen counter.

So, you need to get a clear idea of what problems you’re solving for your customers now. To do this, consult with your customers directly, get input from your sales team, and see what people are saying about you on social media.

Then ask yourself: are the problems we’re solving now the problems that will help us continue to grow? Should we be solving different, maybe bigger, problems?

2. Find the right bigger problems to solve

The world is full of bigger problems – climate change, overpopulation, civil unrest, and many more. But how do you find the right bigger problems? Some ideas that may guide your quest:

Do people with money feel this problem? If you’re running a business, you need to earn revenue – so the problems you solve must involve people who have the money to pay you. And, the problems must be pressing – those ideal customers must actually feel the pain and urgency enough to want to pay you to solve those problems for them

Does this problem give meaning and urgency to your life? As well as pressing on your customers, the problems you’re solving must motivate you. They have to help you get going in the morning and stay at it all day. Only then will you be able to motivate others on your team, even those who don’t interact directly with customers, to help solve those problems too.

Does this problem have staying power? You need a problem that will continue – and better yet, continue to grow. Only then will you have the basis for a business that has sustainability.

Now, let’s consider how you can bake that sustainability into your business.

3. Develop a solution that’s disruptive

If your answer to the problem of refrigerator odors is another box of baking soda, you may need to re-think your approach. You’ll be struggling against a well-entrenched competitor.

Instead, the solution you offer must be disruptive – in other words, it must be unusual and offer new solutions to existing problems. One reason is that if it’s a big enough problem, it won’t be solvable by current thinking, or someone would have solved it already. And, you need to seize attention, and offer an advantage compelling enough so that potential customers will say, “I want some of that.”

Our work at the CFO Centre is something like that. We saw a problem – entrepreneurs whose dreams crash to earth because they don’t have the financial lift they need under their wings. And we saw that many companies can’t afford a full-time experienced CFO (that cash problem again), and what’s more, they don’t need one.

What many (we like to think all) growing companies can use is ongoing access to a CFO’s ability to clear away the financial stumbling blocks, but without a full-time CFO’s cost. So was born our “fractional” CFO – a permanent, but part-time, financial advisor.

That’s our disruptive solution.

One thing we’ve found out is the importance of having the cash you need to build a way to solve the “big problem” you’ve decided to focus on. Without cash, it’s like you’re trying to walk when you need to fly. To learn more about the importance of cash flow, the reasons for it (such as slow-paying customers, high fixed costs), and some steps you can take to resolve them, download our free e-book, simply titled “Cashflow.”