The current climate is one of high demand for many businesses within the trade, manufacturing, agricultural and industrial sectors and yet there are significant challenges that business owners are having to navigate.
The toll that the last couple of years has had is manifesting in several key issues impacting on businesses such as increasing material costs, low staff numbers, time delays and higher transportation costs. Many business owners are finding themselves having to spend more time out on onsite, which can mean that admin duties are falling to the wayside.
Add to this an increase in multi-tasking where businesses are having to take on more than one job at a time to counter problems around time delays in getting materials and there is a trend towards business owners being stretched mentally as well as financially.
Business Support Specialist for EC Credit Control Waikato, Mel Curwood tasks herself with assisting business owners to put the proper processes in place so that they can protect themselves from cashflow issues prevalent in the current environment. Curwood was inspired to work with business owners as the daughter of parents who owned businesses themselves. Growing up she could see that her parents were skilled at what they did but noticed a lack of systems and processes in place to make sure that they were earning a living from what they were doing.
She says, "My parents taught me that it's great to go out there and create your own destiny and on your own time but from the flip side, if you don't have the right systems in place, you end up being a slave to your business."
Working hand in hand with business owners, Curwood assists businesses who may have been operating on handshake deals, don't have proper documentation in place or are simply noticing a change in client's payment behaviour. She helps them to deal with any past issues and put a plan in place so that they can avoid running into cash flow problems in the future.
Curwood notes the importance of cashflow saying that "if you don't have money in your business, then you don't have a business and you can't then achieve those other goals in your business".
One of the key issues that Curwood has seen several businesses struggling with is slow payment and says that it is often a "missed opportunity" with the time spent chasing nonpayers detracting from time they could be spending with paying clients or with family.
She notes that when there is a non-payment issue that the Terms of Trade becomes "the foundation to everything that you can and can't do. It's a little bit like a seatbelt – if you've got Terms of Trade that exist on your website but they're not actually in place it's like you haven't got that seat belt on. It's all very good until you have a crash".
As a Business Support Specialist for EC Credit Control, Curwood aims to help businesses towards having the correct documentation in place to mitigate risk in the event of liquidation. She notes that the Terms of Trade provide a road map to resolution in such instances.
Curwood recommends that business owners register on the PPSR (Personal Properties Security Register) to become a secured creditor. They can then register ownership of their gear on a site so that if a client goes into liquidation and the site is shut down, then they are able to recover their assets. She warns that without the Terms of Trade in place, any equipment left on a site that goes into liquidation is at risk of being seized. This can become a very costly problem for a business owner particularly if the equipment seized is a high value asset like scaffolding for example.
She says that it's not necessarily "the things that you see coming that are the most devastating, it's when you're blindsided and it's something that never occurred to you" that can hurt a business the most. Mel comments that now is a time of immense opportunity for businesses but that there needs to be an emphasis on making sure that business owners have the right systems and processes in place so that if the unexpected was to occur then they've got the right tools to resolve it quickly.
To start the conversation about future-proofing your business, talk to Mel Curwood at EC Credit Control.