Are you ready for the Christmas rush (and the post-Christmas rush)?

A few days ago we posted on our Instagram Stories that it was 100 sleeps until Christmas. At the time it was just s bit of a joke, but it got us thinking, as Christmas and the period after Christmas can be an extremely busy time for businesses - there are a lot of transactions to post, bills to pay and profits or loss to work out. It can be a really hectic couple of months for some businesses and managing cash flow can be time consuming and scary.

For example, in one of our previous roles we had a cheese shop and every year at Christmas we were extremely busy. We had to order our Christmas stock by October, we were taking pre-orders from then to (some paid in advance, some not) and then were generally really busy from November onwards. We had to be very careful with managing cash flow and keeping an eye on profits during this time as come January we had all the invoices for the Christmas cheese to pay for, so a lot of money left our bank account in January.

We learned to manage this well and the more organised our financial records became, the easier it was each year and we could easily see how our cash flow was looking into January and beyond.

One thing that worked out well for us was that as our stock was perishable (the cheese) it wasn’t delivered until December so we didn’t have to pay for it until January (we were on 30 days with most suppliers) after our takings had benefitted from all the Christmas sales. This isn’t the case for some businesses as many are ordering Christmas stock now, so it may need to be paid for before December, and so cash flow can be a real issue for some businesses around Christmas.

We can help manage this so that your business has a healthier cash flow and you have less worry heading into what can be a very hectic and stressful time. We can take care of the data entry, financial transactions and reporting so that you have an accurate view of the cash flow and financial health of your business. It’s better to get this under control now than struggle with it during what could be the busiest period of your business year.

If you’d like some help with bookkeeping then please get in touch.