Consider how money moves through your business over time…
The pitfalls of trusting your bank balance alone

Consider how money moves through your business over time…
I’m moving house shortly, to Gloucestershire. It’s the first time we’ve moved in over 30 years. So while this may not come as a huge surprise to you, I was somewhat taken aback to discover how expensive the whole operation was. Not just buying the house itself – that’s a given! But controlling all the […]
If you were trying to figure out whether you could afford an extension on your house, what kind of information would be more useful to you… A summary of how much money you made and spent around 12 months ago? Or a carefully calculated forecast of how much money you’re going to have over the […]
Did you know that a war chest used to be a real, physical object? Soldiers and military leaders kept it in their homes or barracks, to store arms and armour. And when they launched their military campaigns they took it with them, to store spoils which they could spend along the way. The purpose wasn’t […]
If you have an IT guy, he’s probably suggested at some point that you do a vulnerability assessment. This is a test the tech guys run on your computers, to figure out where all the holes are… …For example, where a hacker might be able to access data, whether you have passwords that are guessable, […]
When COVID hit, most people called their family and friends. My first phone call was completely different… …I called the bank managers of the businesses we serve. Take the heritage railway which I told you about last week. I’ll never forget the call, because their bank manager was brand-new, and “Hello Brian, I need money,” […]
The price of coal has almost doubled in a few short months. It’s an obscure fact… …But as the Finance Director for two heritage railways, it’s the kind of thing I worry about! You see, before the pandemic we could buy coal for around £150 / tonne. If one of our railways burnt around 2,000 […]
One of the trends I’m noticing right now is that companies are having problems with cashflow, particularly in the B2B space. It’s either taking longer for them to get paid, or they’re not getting paid at all. There are many reasons why this might be happening… We seem to be entering a very unstable economic […]
How would you feel about getting your business through 2021… …If you had an additional £50,000 or £100,000 sitting in your bank account? Not to spend, necessarily… But there for you, in case the economy takes a turn for the worse… Or you have sudden cashflow issues… Or alternatively, if the pandemic throws up some […]