There are various factors that can negatively affect your business and increase your debt, such as natural disasters or economic recession. The fact is, you cannot plan for these negative events. However, there is no need to panic, because there are certain options available to you that you can undertake in order to decrease debt. These options require action, and the worst may actually happen if you just sit around and do nothing. This is what you can do to take control of your debts.
1. Understand and Act
As we said earlier, what you should not do is passively wait for things to solve themselves, because it will not happen. What will happen is you losing your employees, your stock being seized, or government intervention (if you fail to pay your taxes) in the worst case scenario. So, start using a good accounting software in order to be fully aware of your financial situation and keep close track of your monthly debt payments. Your payment priorities depend on the type of business you run, but the most important ones are: payroll (pay your employees’ wages on time), business partners and suppliers, bills, aged payables, credit cards, insurance, and secured debts.
2. Increase Revenue
Take action to boost short-term revenue and reduce your debt as much as possible. Reduce prices and offer discounts to your customers in order to improve cash flow by getting fast payments. Talk to your banker or accountant, share your business plans and see whether they can help you to extend your list of clientele. Stay close to your regular customers, get their feedback, try meeting their needs better and charge a bit extra for that.
3. Get More Favorable Terms
If you have a good credit score and always put your bank loan payments on time, maybe you could renegotiate your bank loan terms. Reducing the monthly repayment cost and the interest payments will give you a bit more space to breathe. Meet with your creditors, discuss your situation and present your plan for resolving it. Approach them before the payment problems start, explain that you want to pay them in full, but need to renegotiate terms. The chances are that they will take you more seriously and agree to your pleas.
4. Raise Funds
There are several ways to do it. You can borrow from family and friends or look for new investors. Liquidating assets is another way for acquiring funds, and creditors will probably accept this, because in this way they will get a better deal in case you went bankrupt. Also, you can collect money owed to you from your debtors. If you have troubles with collecting debts, hiring a good debt recovery agency based in Sydney that knows its way with debt collection would be a fine solution.
5. Business Cost Reduction
Check your accounting software to see all your expenses and which one of them can be cut. For example, consider refinancing your credit, ask your vendors for discounts, reduce the office space your rent, combine all of your business loans into one payment with a fixed interest rate, and let go the employees you find redundant. What matters is where and how you cut your costs. Be intelligent about what you plan to cut, plan it out, and do it sensibly.
Turning your business around will be hard work, but it is manageable with perseverance and some luck. Consider your situation and all your options, but be as realistic you can be. The most successful entrepreneurs say that they experienced failure a few times before they triumphed. However, those failures are golden to them because they have learned a lot from them. If you come to the point when nothing can be done to save your business, do not get discouraged. You will come back stronger and experienced.
