Priorities and Cash Flow Tips

Toward the end of each month, I'd like to offer reminders on how to plan for the upcoming month and possibly each quarter.

A little time invested in planning can save money or help with the best use of money for a business.

I'll start first with planning for businesses and then a little for family use. For businesses, I'm going to start with the bottom line first - going backward. These priorities for business are more for service businesses but can be adapted.

Business Planning

• Invoices
- are all invoices current? What money do you expect to come in during July?
If customers are behind on payments, who do you realistically expect to pay?


• Expenses
- do you anticipate any unusual expenses in the coming month?


• Production
- are you producing results effectively? List out the projects that are outstanding or may create a problem.


• Sales
- how is your sales cycle progressing? How many new proposals are currrently out?
depending on your business, you may set a goal for writing a certain number of proposals each quarter.


• Leads
- are leads flowing in, drying up, or do they need more maintenance to generate new sales leads?