For any small business cash flow is pretty important. A study from the financial services company U.S. Bank found that about 82% of startups and small businesses fail due to poor cash flow management. No one can run a business without having a firm grip on their cash flow.
One of the biggest problems is getting paid on time and not having to chase clients for payments. You know how it goes, you send an invoice and nothing happens. You send a reminder, but still nothing. Eventually, a manual EFT happens and then you have to reconcile the proof of payment with your other payments that come in dribs and drabs. Seriously, who has time for that? Luckily it’s 2019 and there are some great solutions to help you take control of your cash flow, and get your clients to pay you faster.
Instant EFTs that are actually Instant
Allowing your customers to pay with PayFast’s Instant EFT service takes the waiting game out of EFT payments. When your customers pay through Instant EFT by PayFast the funds reflect immediately in your PayFast account, that way you can ship or fulfil their order immediately. It’s peace of mind for you and gives your customer instant service which they will love. What’s more, you don’t need to wait for proof of payment. The payment is immediately reconciled in your PayFast Transaction History and you can download this along with all your other payments received.
Cloud Accounting, it’s the future
Xero is a cloud accounting platform that has changed the face of accounting for small businesses around the world. If you’re still manually inputting and reconciling your accounts then it’s time for a change! With Xero, you can send clients invoices with pay now links that allow your clients to pay immediately through various methods such as credit or cheque cards, Instant EFT, Masterpass or even bitcoin!
Once payment is made from a Xero invoice, this will reflect in your Xero account. You can even add monthly PayFast payments to your Xero account by uploading them to Xero so your business accounts will be organised in one place (in the cloud!) where you can access it from anywhere.
Cover your bases
It makes sense that if you have a brick-and-mortar store, sales tend to drop off during the week and pick up on the weekends when people aren’t at work. Did you know this is the opposite for online stores? You can see in the graph below that sales actually increase during the week for online stores with Monday and Tuesday being the busiest. So cover all your bases and set up an online store to increase sales during the week. That way you’ll have a consistent flow of cash coming into your business.
Keep your taxes under control
Submitting tax returns for small businesses can be a minefield and you need to make sure this part of your business is airtight. If you have an accountant to assist you then that’s great. However, if not you can make use of Tax Tim who’s just launched a product specifically for small businesses. Tax Tim assists individuals and small businesses file their tax returns by asking simple questions (in English… no tax jargon) and convert your answers into a fully complete tax return ready to be submitted to SARS for a small fee. Who knows, you may even qualify for a tax refund and you didn’t even know!
Keeping your cash flow under control is easily doable, set aside some time during your schedule to make sure you know what’s going on in your business and if you’re really stuck and find you need a little cash injection the good news is that PayFast merchants can apply for a Lulalend loan straight through their merchant dashboard. Visit payfast.co.za for more information.
