10 Tips to Survive a Cash Flow Crisis

This just went out on the wire 2 days ago, and already we’ve had calls from the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and the BBC. The Wall Street Journal boiled it down to 5 tips, which can be found on their Independent Street blog:     http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/10/01/five-tips-for-surviving-a-cash-flow-crisis/ ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — For small [...]

A case study of detailed cash planning using SurvivalWare Cash Planner

Ivan Newton was kind enough to be interviewed about his usage of SurvivalWare to right his business and propel it forward.  His conclusion: “SurvivalWare is the best solution we’ve found that addresses the unique ‘balancing act’ of our small business.” Here is his story as re-told by Mary Ritley: Ivan Newton is a franchise business owner [...]

The Pros and Cons of Detailed Cash Planning

This is a series of articles on Detailed Cash Planning presented in a logic order.  To get them to appear this way in the blog, I had to write all the articles first, and then enter them in reverse order.   Detailed Cash Planning Defined Who should do Detailed Cash Planning, who should not How [...]

Detailed Cash Planning Defined

Detail Cash Planning is just what is says:  a very detailed approach to planning for the cash requirements of a company, and a look at whether it can meet those requirements.    We call it detailed because it means you literally make a list of every payment you plan to make (check by check) for the [...]

Who should do Detailed Cash Planning

Small vs. large companies Business vs. personal finance Starting out, no history In trouble In transition  Small vs. large companies The larger a company you are, the less likely you should be doing Detailed Cash Planning.  Part of it is the sheet magnitude of number crunching required.  Part of it is that cash has a [...]

How to guide – doing Detailed Cash Planning in Excel

Here is a step by step approach to preparing a detailed cash plan in Excel.  I’m sure there are several ways to do it.  I picked the first one that seemed to work.  This is an expansion of the example mentioned in the article “Surviving a Cash Crisis – Fundamentals” (a must read if you [...]

How to guide – using the SurvivalWare Cash Planner

    Let’s continue with the same set of assumptions from the Excel spreadsheet, but this time using the SurvivalWare Cash Planner.      Step 1 – enter the current cash balance.  And also define the planning horizon with the ending date of the first period, and the number of periods, and their units (days, weeks, months).   [...]

Surviving a cash crisis – Fundamentals

 Surviving a cash crisis – Fundamentals (This article originally appeared on the SurvivalWare website several years ago.  I thought it might be helpful in these turbulent times).  This article is intended to give you a common sense, rational approach to assessing how bad things are, and to use the information to help craft a way [...]

Weekly vs. Monthly Cash Flow Projections

I just got an email from the U.K. affiliate of a U.S. customer who was demoing the cash flow projection capability of SurvivalWare Desktop to a group of franchisees.  Their response was that they’d like to see weekly cash flow projections for the next quarter, not just the monthly cash flow projections.  I’ll never forget [...]