A business without a steady income stream will soon find itself unable to satisfy its obligations with its vendors or maintain its overhead. This is especially true in times of economic slowdown and for businesses without large reserves.  Smart cash flow management strategies combined with Intuit QuickBooks’ vast toolset will speed up receivables and help a business survive.

Invoice immediately.

One way to generate cash faster is to begin invoicing at the point of sale or delivery. Some merchants might consider giving a discount for rapid payments. QuickBooks can send electronic invoices that can be paid immediately by letting users sign up for credit card payments through the software. Businesses benefit by making it easy for customers to pay quickly.

Use QuickBooks’ Cash Flow Projector.

QuickBooks’ Cash Flow Projector tool allows business owners to use past cash receipts already in the software plus custom data to plan their businesses in the near future. By modifying payment and expense figures, users can see how different strategies will affect their operations. The ability to buy inventory, reduce debt service, do marketing, and more can be assessed by running different projections.

Assess finance charges on slow payers.

QuickBooks lets you see invoices that are overdue and assess finance charges to encourage customers to speed up their payments. Customers should be made aware of the terms and charges due on late payments when they place their orders, preferably in prominent text on every invoice. The point of a finance charge is not to generate extra revenue from the fee itself but to encourage the customer to save money by paying on time. A small 1-2% fee every 30 days might inspire customers to open up their checkbooks.

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