The thing about cash flow is that it is dynamic. It is the life blood of a retail business. Even using the best tools you can’t predict tomorrow. So as the year turns over and another starts it is nice to look back and see where cash flow management tools worked and where they can’t.

At the beginning of each year we create a new cash flow plan. It has our sales budgets for each month by the week along with all of our expenses plus our inventory purchases. This is our starting place. We now have a preliminary plan for sales, expenses and cash flow for the coming year.

Looking at our cash flow plan for last year it quickly became clear that our expense plan was very close to what we had planned for. There were a few bumps or unexpected expenses and some increases but for the most part the expenses were what we planned for.

Labor costs changed over the year as a number of our long term staff members found other jobs or moved. This created unexpected changes in our labor cost plan. The cash flow plan had to get adjusted to meet the changes.

But the thing that affects cash flow the most is sales. Meeting or surpassing the sales goals keeps the cash flowing through the business. But, a drop in sales will lessen the cash available to the business.

We experienced both surpassing the sales goals and a drop in sales. Having a cash flow plan enabled us to be projecting where our cash needs would be in the short term, like 10 days to the longer term like the next quarter. We knew when we had cash on hand what we needed and where to use the cash to diminish the know shortfalls.

The unexpected drop in sales presents a more difficult time. Because you don’t know on the front side whether this is a short term drop or a longer one the cash flow plan becomes even more valuable. We reviewed the plan more frequently to assess our needs and create actions to make the most of our opportunities. Knowing what we needed in cash allowed us to shift our attention to our sales to attempt to hit those cash goals.

So the cash flow management tools gave us solid information on the current state of our cash availability and enabled us to meet difficult times with more information. This helped us in our planning and our actions to be focused on what we needed.

The tools aren’t going to tell you if your sales are going to drop suddenly but you will know where you stand in terms of cash flow and cash needs.

I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous new year.
he thing about cash flow is that it is dynamic. It is the life blood of a retail business. Even using the best tools you can’t predict tomorrow. So as the year turns over and another starts it is nice to look back and see where cash flow management tools worked and where they can’t.

At the beginning of each year we create a new cash flow plan. It has our sales budgets for each month by the week along with all of our expenses plus our inventory purchases. This is our starting place. We now have a preliminary plan for sales, expenses and cash flow for the coming year.

Looking at our cash flow plan for last year it quickly became clear that our expense plan was very close to what we had planned for. There were a few bumps or unexpected expenses and some increases but for the most part the expenses were what we planned for.

Labor costs changed over the year as a number of our long term staff members found other jobs or moved. This created unexpected changes in our labor cost plan. The cash flow plan had to get adjusted to meet the changes.

But the thing that affects cash flow the most is sales. Meeting or surpassing the sales goals keeps the cash flowing through the business. But, a drop in sales will lessen the cash available to the business.

We experienced both surpassing the sales goals and a drop in sales. Having a cash flow plan enabled us to be projecting where our cash needs would be in the short term, like 10 days to the longer term like the next quarter. We knew when we had cash on hand what we needed and where to use the cash to diminish the know shortfalls.

The unexpected drop in sales presents a more difficult time. Because you don’t know on the front side whether this is a short term drop or a longer one the cash flow plan becomes even more valuable. We reviewed the plan more frequently to assess our needs and create actions to make the most of our opportunities. Knowing what we needed in cash allowed us to shift our attention to our sales to attempt to hit those cash goals.

So the cash flow management tools gave us solid information on the current state of our cash availability and enabled us to meet difficult times with more information. This helped us in our planning and our actions to be focused on what we needed.

The tools aren’t going to tell you if your sales are going to drop suddenly but you will know where you stand in terms of cash flow and cash needs.

I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous new year.
The thing about cash flow is that it is dynamic. It is the life blood of a retail business. Even using the best tools you can’t predict tomorrow. So as the year turns over and another starts it is nice to look back and see where cash flow management tools worked and where they can’t.

At the beginning of each year we create a new cash flow plan. It has our sales budgets for each month by the week along with all of our expenses plus our inventory purchases. This is our starting place. We now have a preliminary plan for sales, expenses and cash flow for the coming year.

Looking at our cash flow plan for last year it quickly became clear that our expense plan was very close to what we had planned for. There were a few bumps or unexpected expenses and some increases but for the most part the expenses were what we planned for.

Labor costs changed over the year as a number of our long term staff members found other jobs or moved. This created unexpected changes in our labor cost plan. The cash flow plan had to get adjusted to meet the changes.

But the thing that affects cash flow the most is sales. Meeting or surpassing the sales goals keeps the cash flowing through the business. But, a drop in sales will lessen the cash available to the business.

We experienced both surpassing the sales goals and a drop in sales. Having a cash flow plan enabled us to be projecting where our cash needs would be in the short term, like 10 days to the longer term like the next quarter. We knew when we had cash on hand what we needed and where to use the cash to diminish the know shortfalls.

The unexpected drop in sales presents a more difficult time. Because you don’t know on the front side whether this is a short term drop or a longer one the cash flow plan becomes even more valuable. We reviewed the plan more frequently to assess our needs and create actions to make the most of our opportunities. Knowing what we needed in cash allowed us to shift our attention to our sales to attempt to hit those cash goals.

So the cash flow management tools gave us solid information on the current state of our cash availability and enabled us to meet difficult times with more information. This helped us in our planning and our actions to be focused on what we needed.

The tools aren’t going to tell you if your sales are going to drop suddenly but you will know where you stand in terms of cash flow and cash needs.

I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous new year.

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