The amount of profit you make is due to either your success or failure and ultimately fuels the growth of your business, generates a financial support for the owners and provides for the well being of the staff.

To increase your profits you need to determine factors contributing to your gross profit and your overheads. Gross profit requires you to either expand your sales income while controlling your direct costs, or reduce direct costs to increase gross profit.

WH Smith the high street retailer has pleased the financial markets by delivering lower revenue but with a higher margin %. As they say ‘revenue is for vanity, profit is for sanity, and cash is reality’.

To do this you need to ensure the following:

• You know and understand your market/s and your competitors
• You have full product and/or service knowledge and you are technically capable in managing all aspects of the business
• Your service and/or products are of the highest quality, delivered on time and run in accordance with any legislation or other specifications.
• You apply marketing campaigns that are cost-effective but increase your sales. These include in-house promotions, leaflets, press releases and adverts.

Your business overheads also need to be kept under control and requires you to monitor, review and strategise for the following:

• Business Expenses – keep to an absolute minimum, and ensure that any additional overheads you assume result in increased profitability and/or efficiency.
• Increase Overheads – ensure that you have reviewed the market and established where the best place is to purchase your stock. Reliability and costs need to be justified.
• Assets acquired on finance – Review and check your finance options to see if you can getter a better deal elsewhere or reduce your general loan costs
• Reviews – Many businesses could benefit from a regular review of their telephone and insurance costs. Even bank charges can often be reduced through negotiation or review.
• Credit – Regularly monitor your credit account customers to avoid bad debts occurring and find the best credit card deal relating to your business.

Roger T Brown
Consultant
http://www.nuOrder.co.uk

Just because the high street banks are not lending money it doesn’t mean that no one is lending money. For every high street lending product there is at least one independent finance company providing an alternative. Often these alternatives can be more flexible and creative. XL Business Finance has been helping businesses for over 12 years find innovative and flexible business financing solutions

Alternative forms of funding can be provided for leasing , hire purchase, refinance of assets, factoring, invoice discounting, international trade finance, construction finance  and commercial mortgages. In addition it may be possible to obtain Europeans loans monies if you know where to look as well as the government banked EFG funding. Alternatives forms of funding are not just restricted to those businesses that have been knocked back by their bank. Long established and profitable business may also benefit from getting an alternative viewpoint

Any business that has been declined funding by the bank might be eligible for European  Loan money. Depending on your location loans of £50-£250k may be available for expansion and development. The business whilst must have exhausted their options with the banks ( which isn’t very difficult nowadays) must be wanting the cash for positive reasons. The cash might be required for additional working capital to purchase stock for example to fulfill a full order book. It might be a deposit for a new machine or property for example. The idea is that the loans are available for businesses that will potential create new jobs in their particular sector or area. Call Mark Redman of XL Business Finance on 07748 635 206 to find out if you maybe eligible for funding.

Need help with collecting payments but don’t need or want  full factoring?  It is not commonly known that it is possible to outsource this function to a specialist credit control company. Why waste valuable time chasing and collecting aged debtors when this can be done on your behalf in a cost effective and efficient manner. Many businesses loose sight that this is probably one of the most important aspects of running a business. XL Business Finance has teamed up with a leading credit control and bad debt recovery firm to provide support and advice to businesses requiring  additional help in collecting their debts.

In additional credit control can be provided in a confidential manner with your dedicated creditor controller working as one of your employees. A number  of these credit control companies also have their own legal team therefore providing a dove tailed solution should a payment become overdue , disputed or bad. In the current economic climate of slow and bad payers there is evidence to suggest that the quicker and harder you hit your bad debts the more likely you are to recover your monies. Therefore if you find your aged debtor report with too many customers in the 90 day plus column you seriously need some help.

Anyone involved in the instruction industry will know how difficult it is to obtain working capital facilities. Due to the contractual nature of invoicing and applications for payment traditional forms of invoice finance are not available. The good news is that there are two or three independent finance companies that can provide funding against contractual debt and application for payments.

Specialist invoice finance companies use their own QS’s to asses work and provide funding that traditionally isn’t available via the high street banks. Whilst prepayments might not be as high as traditional invoice finance and factoring facilities the ability to get 50 or 60% of outstanding payments provides vital working capital for many businesses. As with any form of business finance the finance companies in question are all very different animals and provide slightly different forms of funding. XL Business Finance with over 12 years of experience can help you with speaking to the right funder.

Until now stand alone asset refinance has only been available from specialist  and traditional more expensive finance companies.  However, a prime funder has now entered the market offering to refinance plant machinery and tangible assets providing it is for the right reason. Funds might be required for expansion, deposit on a new machine, an MBO or an MBI.

The balance sheet of the business must be reasonable and the business must have been trading for more than three years. Providing there is a strong rationale for the refinance and the equipment has good value we have a very good chance of obtaining some funding. Businesses which are struggling and need to refinance kit because they  and are struggling to pay creditors may still be able to obtain funding but it will be via a very different type of lender.

Normally it is possible to provide an indication of what is available within 24 hours. All we need to get the ball rolling is a list of plant and machinery to include age make and model. We can then get a value of the kit for refinancing purposes which enables a quick assessment of the viability of the refinance. XL Business Finance is one of the Uks leading funders in asset finance and refinance and we have 15 years experience in doing such deals.

I think it goes with out saying that the continuing eurocrisis will have a  significant affect on business lending via the high street banks and finance companies. If any of the euro companies default on their debt there is the potential for significant bank write offs which in turn require the banks to recapitalise resulting in less cash for the business borrower. The goods is that there have always been and always will be alternative forms of business finance.

XL Business Finance has for the last 10 years been providing alternative forms of business finance. Whether a business is looking for invoice finance such as factoring or invoice discounting, asset finance or refinance, or alternative forms of specilaist finance such as trade or construction finance there is always an alternative to the high street bank.  These finance companies maybe lesser known but they are often specialists in their particular sector and can often provide alternative and often more flexible and creative forms of funding.

Ever wished you had funded your cap expenditure requirements instead of paying cash. Did you know it is possible to organise retrospective hire purchase and finance lease deals within 3 months of purchase?

So many businesses come to us asking for additional working capital following cash purchases of  plant and machinery. In today’s economic climate trading conditions can rapidly change and it makes prudent business sense to fund as much as possible. Cash is King as they say.  Funding is available at decent rates, subject to credit of course and  providing you meet the funders lending criteria. If the purchase is more than 3 months ago don’t worry, finance may still be available but it is a different type of funding. Asset refinance is provided by a number of specialist asset based lenders and  it is an area that XL Business Finance has many years experience.

It is now possible for business owners and managers to select which customers/transactions they would like to fund, collect or insure against potential bad debt!

Selective factoring offers customers the independence and flexibility that traditional factoring does not. The major benefit to businesses is that Selective factoring looks at individual transactions rather than the whole balance sheet allowing new start businesses to flourish and grow. For larger businesses  it allows them to factor individual invoices, where whole factoring is not wanted or needed. XL Business Finance has been helping businesses for over 10 years find the most appropriate business finance solutions.