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Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Improve your cash flow

by Robert McCallion and Alan Warner

Cash flow is the simplest concept of all those that the person running a business has to cope with. It is simple to understand, if not to improve. Cash flow is the change in the cash position – effectively the bank account – that takes place as a result of decisions that are made in the course of a business day.
Everyone – or at least all those of us who avoid personal bankruptcy – will understand what cash flow means, even if we do not use that label. When you look at your bank statement and see that there is less money there than there was before, that is looking at cash flow. Cash flow for (say) a month is the net difference between the money you had at the beginning of the month compared to the end. If there is less money in the bank than last month, that is a negative cash flow; if there is more, that is a positive cash flow.
So it is with companies. If Tesco or Unilever have a lower cash figure – or a higher overdraft – in their annual balance sheet than last year, analysts will say that there is a negative cash flow. The management of the company would then look for the underlying causes and would try to do something about it. But that’s another story.

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Improve Your Cash Flow: Teach Yourself

Improve Your Cash Flow: Teach Yourself
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Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Cash flow Cash flow is often described as the blood of business, due to its importance in ensuring commercial survival.
Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Book-keeping history From approximately 4000 BC , the growth of trade led to a need for record keeping in the Mesopotamian river valleys. Findings dating from about 3300 BC indicate that Sumerian temple officials used wet clay tablets to record stocks and transactions. For example, landowners would record the number of livestock placed under the care of farmers with special clay symbols.
Close More Sales: Keep price breakdown information to yourself In a selling situation, a professional buyer will ALWAYS push you for price breakdown information, and the more you give them, the more they’ll use it against you! That’s why you should always keep price breakdown information to yourself.
Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Ask for a referral with every customer you meet After every sales visit, regardless of the outcome, if you can acquire the habit of asking a simple question just before you leave, you will be able to maintain a constant flow of high quality sales leads.
Close More Sales: Confirm every sales appointment with a PS letter or email Have you ever gone to an appointment that you had originally made by telephone, only to find that when you get there, the prospect is unavailable because they had forgotten about it? If so, then you’ll already know how frustrating it is - not to mention a complete waste of your valuable time! That’s why it’s always a good idea to make a point of confirming every sales appointment by letter or email, straight away.
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Close More Sales: Use the ‘try before you buy’ close In a face-to-face selling situation, it usually proves to be an irresistible offer to let your prospects ‘try before they buy’ and enjoy the benefits of your product during a free trial period. Providing your product lends itself to his idea, it’s a great way to reduce sales resistance, and give your product the chance to sell itself.
Close More Sales: Exercise your expertise power As an experienced professional salesperson, the chances are you know more about your industry, your market, your competitors and your products and services than just about any other person alive – and don’t forget, that includes your buyers! The fact is, you are an expert, and let’s make no mistake about it, during the course of a sale that expertise is a powerful persuasive force.
Close More Sales: Harness print power The fact that something is printed tends to enhance its believability. It has a kind of built-in authority that the spoken word or handwritten materials just cannot match.
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