Every business hits a crisis every now and again. It is what makes running your own enterprise so exciting and what helps entrepreneurs hone their business skills. You learn most when the going gets tough. If you can survive the rough patch then you will emerge stronger and more resilient than before.

Sometimes the crisis is triggered by your own mistakes and it is important that you learn from this going forward. Making a mistake once is understandable but making the same mistake again is not acceptable in business. On the other hand, the crisis may have been triggered by external factors that were outside of your control. This could be anything from an act of God like a lightning strike on your warehouse to your biggest supplier going bust and taking your money with them.

Many new businesses cease trading in their first year but there are ways in which you can make sure that your business survives the vulnerable early months. You must build up a network of support that helps you get established and ride out the rough patches. Here are some ideas for the type of support that you need in the early days of trading.

Cash flow support for your business

Maintaining a healthy cash flow is one of the biggest challenges facing a new business. Without cash, you cannot pay your suppliers and employees or invest in new initiatives. Yet, your flow of cash can be limited by late or non-payment of invoices.

This leaves you with two alternatives which are spot loans or factoring. When lenders make a spot loan they will charge interest and you may need adequate collateral and a strong credit history to qualify. With factoring, however, you get to turn your business invoices into instant cash at an affordable fee.

It is advisable to look into this before you actually need it. Once you are under pressure and your bills are mounting up it is harder to make a calm and rational decision that is best in the long-run.

IT support for your computer systems

Every business relies on IT to communicate with the outside world. An IT failure could be one of the most catastrophic things that can happen to a new business. If the failure takes a lot of your records with it then this could be even worse. Many businesses have been targeted by international cyber-attacks and this situation is likely to get worse in the future. Don’t wait for disaster to strike. Introduce a robust system of regularly backing up your records, this could be cloud based or on a hard-drive. Then appoint an IT consultant that you can call on immediately when things go wrong. The more time your systems are down, the more money you will lose.

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Accounting advice to ward off a financial crisis

You can avoid many crises by appointing appropriate accountancy support. With professional accounting and financial advice, you could avoid the same situation from happening again and future-proof your invoicing systems.