Small Business Archives

Once you’ve got your business up and running profitably, you probably want to know all about how to reduce business debt, right?

Depending on the kind of debt that it is, it could be eating into your cash flow and keeping you from expanding the way that you want to. It makes perfect sense that you want to get rid of any business debt you accumulate as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that in some cases, there is debt that is “good” for your business. We will discuss “good” business debt in a future post.

In many cases debt is inevitable, especially during the earliest phases of a company’s development.

Fortunately, that debt doesn’t have be something that constantly hangs over your head and keeps your enterprise from being the best that it can be.

Let’s take a look at some of the different strategies that you can employ to reduce your company’s debt. You’ll see how you can gain peace of mind through business debt reduction.

Work with your suppliers – In figuring out how to reduce business debt, one of the first places that you should look should be the suppliers from whom you buy raw materials

If you happen to be behind on supplier payments, you want to work out a payment plan with your suppliers that will help you to get current with them.

Your company most likely depends on what your suppliers sell you, so you want to settle any outstanding debts with them first and foremost.

Doing so will make sure that your relationship stays strong and that you continue receiving the items you need to provide your own goods and services.

Sell, sell, sell – In order to reduce debt, you need to increase revenue. That much is obvious. There are several ways to go about doing that; the most straightforward of which is to increase your sales volume and move more product and services than you have in the past.

Offer incentives to your customers to get them to buy more, as long as its viable for you to do so. As you manage to sell more products, you can use the additional revenue to reduce your company’s debt.

Restructure – When many business owners try to figure out how to reduce business debt, one thing they often fail to consider is how much restructuring might help them reduce debt.

From selling surplus inventory and unused equipment, to cutting back on excess around the business, there are a several small, but significant things that you can do to get closer to your goal of eliminating your company’s debt.

Reduce Your Operating Expenses – This could fall in line with restructuring, or be its own strategy entirely.

Think about the things that always cost your money around your business.

You have your utilities like electricity and water, as well as services like your internet connection. Furthermore, you have the office itself, which you most likely pay to rent.

While it’s true that these things are the cost of business, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways to reduce them.

If it’s realistic for you to do so, consider moving to a smaller office or switching service providers for more cost-effective solutions. The money that you save could be reallocated to tackling your debt.

Likewise, you could consider alternative scheduling for your employees. If you encourage them to spend time working from home on their own schedules for part of the time, you can ease a transition to a different office. Likewise, you may not need to purchase, power, support, and maintain as much equipment around your office.

Look over your taxes – Speak with your accountant, CFO, or any other financial expert that you employ and they can help you figure out how to reduce business debt.

One way that they might do this is by going over what you pay in taxes and making sure that you are counting all of your eligible deductions throughout the year.

It pays to do this often because tax laws are always changing and new ways for businesses to take advantage of tax breaks are always popping up.

You want to make sure that your annual tax bill is always at its lowest possible number, so that any money left over after you pay the IRS can go towards reducing your company’s business debt.

Keeping your debt under control is one of the most important things that you can do as a business owner, so you want to make sure that you’re taking every step that you can to pay back creditors and keep outstanding balances from impacting your company’s bottom line.

Remember, running a business successfully does not need to be complicated. Keep it simple!

For more valuable articles to help you successfully manage the challenges of growing your business profitably, please search our blog at our website www.portalcfo.com.

Manny Skevofilax

Manny Skevofilax is a consultant and speaker that helps his clients successfully navigate the challenges of growing their businesses profitably. Since 2003, Manny helps businesses enhance their results by using his experience in strategic planning, financial statement analysis, operations, organizational development, and team-building. His consulting firm, PORTAL CFO Consulting, Inc., has attracted clients from diverse industries in the United States and abroad.

Manny can be reached at 410-808-3441 or via email at manny@portalcfo.com.

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The question of how to reduce operational risk is one that should be on the mind of every business owner. It doesn’t matter if you run a hot dog cart or a multinational conglomerate. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only employee or if you employ a workforce that could populate a small city.

Whoever you are, whatever you do, you need to know about the many different ways your company is constantly exposed to operational risk. You also need to know what you can do to reduce risks so that they aren’t as much of a hazard to your company’s success.

Doing so is necessary to maintaining a competitive advantage. It also ensures that your company is able to keep a strong presence in its sector. Because no businesses are alike, the risks that they face will differ, so this post will take a broad look at how to reduce operational risk. By the end, you’ll be able to take the principles of what’s discussed here and apply them to your own business practices. This should allow you to reduce the impact of the losses that your business could incur as a direct result of risk.

4 Steps – How To Reduce Operational Risk:

Step 1: Managing Equipment Failures

For all of the good that technology has done for the world of business, the equipment that you use to conduct your operations can still break down. Depending on the severity of the failure, you could face crippling losses in revenue. It’s because of the fact that technology has become so intertwined with businesses that extra steps have to be taken to:

safeguard information
make sure all equipment works properly
ensure alternate plans are in place in the event of a failure

If your company relies heavily on information technology (IT) infrastructure like a computer network, then make sure that programs and hardware are up to date and protected by the best security that you can afford.

If you operate in manufacturing, transportation, or any other industry that relies heavily on machines with a lot of moving parts, then the question of how to reduce operational risk can be answered by adhering to regular maintenance and making sure that small issues are addressed quickly enough that they don’t become large issues.

Step 2: Keep Strong Business to Business Relationships

Your business wouldn’t be able to survive without the work of other businesses. Whether you rely on another company for supplies, shipping, or anything else that you need to count on in order to run your own enterprise, it pays to keep strong relationships with other companies.

In thinking of how to reduce operational risk in this respect, you have to look at common risks like miscommunications, accounting errors, delivery failures, incomplete or missing legal documents and vendor disputes as ways that business to business relationships can expose your company to risk.

With this type of operational risk, you want to make sure that you and your vendors and suppliers are always on the same page when it comes to your transactions. It never hurts to double check figures and make sure that invoices, quantities, and other aspects of the business to business supply chain are correct.

Doing these things can keep your relationships strong and reduce the likelihood that errors common in these sorts of interactions will have negative effects on either side of the transaction.

Step 3: Having Adequate Insurance

You want to make sure that, in the event that something does happen, your business has the proper insurance it needs to cover the event.

It could be anything from property damage to a personal injury, but having an insurance policy that covers something that could negatively impact your business could mean the difference between a minor and major disruption in your business operations.

When thinking about how to reduce operational risk as far as your insurance coverage is concerned, go over your existing insurance policies and make sure that all possibilities are covered. It pays to consult with a representative of your company’s insurance broker to guarantee that you have all of the coverage you need.

From property insurance to liability, there are a number of different types of insurance that you can get to cover your business. Make sure you have them all and risk won’t catch you off guard.

Step 4: Know the Regulations

If you stay up to date on state and federal regulations as they relate to your business, then you take a huge step towards knowing how to reduce operational risk. Whatever it is that you do, you want to make sure that all of your business practices are well within the confines of the law of the land in which you operate.

Things like health and safety standards, employee wages, licensing and certification, taxes, and permits all have an influence on how you’ll run your business. Don’t let ignorance of the law lead to trouble later down the road.