The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly caused issues to businesses worldwide this year. In fact, the latest figures show that over 100,000 small businesses have closed this year in the USA alone due to Coronavirus-related issues.
These figures are quite scary, and whether you own a small or a large business, you may be worried about the future of your own company. Let’s take a look at the effects of Covid-19 and how you can keep your business afloat during hard times.
The Financial Impact Of Covid-19
In almost every industry, the pandemic has limited business incomes. One of the most obvious examples is hospitality. Around the world, various restrictions were placed on hospitality venues, from total closures to take-away only. But there are many other businesses that have been affected.
Even your standard office-based company has had to completely change the way they work and may have completely lost contracts or large chunks of income through various pandemic impacts. In Singapore, a blog post over at licensed money lender Lending Bee states “The Government has advised people to stay inside as much as possible.” This means that all non-essential businesses were closed, meaning every last one faced a lack of income for months.
What’s Your Financial Position?
To begin, you need to understand your company’s financial situation. No matter how the starting point feels, get started by organizing your cash flow documents.
Before you can make any future plans or seek any help, you need to know your starting point. You can’t control your future finances effectively if you have yet to measure your situation. So draw up that cash flow spreadsheet and fill in every last detail.
Bank Accounts
Simply put: Make sure there is some money in your bank account. Try and put any remaining cash in other accounts into your central account to make sure initial payments like rent are covered.
You can extend your overdraft facility or ask for a new one. Sounds simple, but simply keeping all cash stocks in your main account is a start. If you decide to sell off any equipment, stock, or property, place the money in here too.
Business Loans
One option available to almost all businesses is a loan. There are a couple of types of loans available to you. Firstly, standard business loans. They will be available from lenders all over the world, who will have offers available for long term COVID-impacted loans. Shop around and find the right deal for you.
The other option is that many governments have introduced support measures for impacted companies. You may be able to get help from your local government to cover staff wages, or for Covid-19 business interruption loans to cover any other costs your business may have incurred during the lockdown.
Move Online
If your business is sales or service-based, there’s always an option to increase your online presence. Many businesses have jumped onto online selling or adapting their practices to allow for online working/working from home. If you have products to sell or clients to reach out to, you can do all of this online at very little extra cost to yourself. Consider looking into the best value tech for online working, or coming up with new ideas for working remotely! You could even fully adapt your business into totally new products and services for the new socially-distanced world.
New Ideas
Your business will have to adapt and change to bring money in during these extremely trying times. As above, you could switch to delivery-based products or online services. But above and beyond this, you could completely switch up what your business does! For example, what about a hospitality company? They could use their facilities to start selling recipes and meal boxes online! Taking it even further, you could create completely new products and ideas which are totally unrelated to your current business. Think outside the box!
Keep Your External Teams Informed
Finally, remember that there are many other businesses going through the same things as you. If you have regular customers, suppliers, or business partners, ensure you keep them all up-to-date with what’s happening with your business. If you keep them in the loop with your financial struggles and ideas and speak to them with transparency, you will ensure you’re on the same team and still have people to work with in the future.
Hopefully, some of these points will help you deliver sustainable cash flow during the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic is still active all over the world, so act now to keep your business going strong. Good luck, and stay safe!
