Business Debtline
Provides expert debt advice to the self-employed and small businesses online and over the phone.
Managing financial difficulties
Find the right tools to support your business in difficult times
Left unchecked, financial difficulties can have more serious consequences. But many can be resolved relatively easily – here are a number of simple actions that you can take.
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Short-term cashflow problems will often be caused by underlying profitability issues in the medium to longer term.
When analysing your business, you should consider the following things.
1. Sales strategy
There are a number of steps you can take, such as
- Market analysis/segmentation
- Estimating the demand for your product, and whether there will be any seasonal variations
- Understanding the environment (for example, competitor actions, legal constraints)
Remember that to be successful, you often have to be seen to differentiate or add value, perhaps by offering a niche product or service.
See our in-depth guide to writing a business plan [PDF, 6.2MB].
Help identify profitability issues for your business with our profitability healthcheck [PDF, 100KB].
2. Margin improvements
The generic sales strategy may also be driven by more detailed analysis of margins. These are directly impacted by two elements: sales price and cost of sales.
3. Cost reductions
As well as focusing on the margin, you should also look at ways to reduce indirect costs, such as
- Tightly monitoring your spending limiting ineffective marketing spend
- Reducing premises costs – re-negotiate rent or sublet part of your building
- Restricting overtime working
- Changing some fixed costs to variable, perhaps by outsourcing
- Better tax planning
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If you’re worried your business is showing signs of financial difficulty, it’s important to let us know – the sooner, the better.
You can do this either through your usual Barclays contact or by visiting our contact pages.
So we can give you the right kind of support, it’ll be useful for you to do the following before talking to us
- Call the Business Debtline – speak to a trained adviser on a wide range of topics to help support your business
- Speak to your priority debtors to agree payment plans with them
If you’re facing challenges that mean you need extra support from us or different services than usual, please let us know and we’ll see how we can help.
Other sources of free advice
Here are the details of independent agencies that can provide you with free, confidential advice if your business hits financial difficulties.
National Debtline
Provides impartial personal-debt advice to people across the UK, online and over the phone.
Citizens Advice Bureau
Provides advice on a broad range of topics including personal debt and benefits, face to face, over the phone and online.
Business Gateway (Scotland)
Provides business support services and impartial advice to companies in Scotland.
The Insolvency Service
A government agency that provides services and guidance to businesses experiencing financial distress.
Business Emergency Resilience Group
The Business Emergency Resilience Group (BERG) helps UK businesses prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding, cyber attacks and civil unrest.
Addington Fund
Provides homes for farming families living in England and Wales who have to leave the industry and by doing so will lose their home.
Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution
The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI) provides support for farmers if they are in financial difficulty and of limited means.