Ways to improve cash flow using technology

1) Get the insights you need:

Get the insights you need to make business decisions in real-time. Cloud tools like Spotlight make it easier to forecast and help businesses look forward and plan with clarity.

You can accurately project P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash flow statements using the base data in your cloud accounting software. This gives you a base forecast to start building from. You can start to sensitise the data and run scenarios based on the “what if questions”. For example, “what happens if my largest customer is to go under”?

You’ll start to see the impact and can begin to evaluate different scenarios, helping you to plan and take action. 

Do not forecast manually, it’s time-consuming and prone to error. Try and find an app on the marketplace that fits with your cloud accounting package or explore new tools that can do cash flow forecasts in a fraction of the time. 

2) Get paid faster, by giving customers more ways to pay:

Set up e-payments so that customers can ‘Pay Now’ when an invoice comes in. Consider using Go Cardless, or other methods such as Stripe and PayPal where you can automatically view and reconcile the transactions in most cloud applications, which provides a real-time view of cash in.

3) Automatecredit control:

Fully automated credit control has real tangible benefits ….

Chaser say that their customers get paid 16 days sooner on average and they save approximately 16 hours per week on credit control management.

When evaluating automated credit control software, look out for these features:

Automated reminders and features – you want to be able to set reminders in a sophisticated schedule, so that you never forget to follow up on an unpaid invoice again. Tailoring the schedules by customer group or type will enable you to add a more personalised touch, these could be for good or bad payers, those on payment plans or long-term customers.

Scheduled phone calls – sometimes businesses need more than an automated payment reminder and a phone call is the only way to get paid. Look for software that automates with your CRM system, so that you have the customer information readily available, and any details and action points are only recorded once.

Smart chasing, powered by AI – you’d want software that has artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning built-in. It will provide key insights into your debtor position and will enable the right customers to be chased, the most important debts prioritised and flag up the critical action points.

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