Company: R&D Tax Credit (Breakthrough Funding)
Industry: Finance
When: June 2018
Why did you seek intervention?
I started my company three years ago and all was going to plan. We reached a profitable £1 million turnover from scratch in 14 months, and I believed our business processes and company culture had been constructed carefully to give us a robust platform for future growth which we deserved.
With an MBA and as a former business consultant I believed I could handle all the difficult challenges that face entrepreneurs and would be able to continue to push forward in our aggressive growth plans.
However, while the balance sheet was looking very strong, our cash flow remained stubbornly at a barely comfortable level. We had never gone into overdraft or had to borrow, and although I had some 30 years’ respected business experience, I could not see how we could reverse this situation easily. Instead, while bad debts had not been a problem and we were really hot on credit control, as we grew our debtor balance just kept escalating. I thought all we could do was to continue trading and eventually we would get to the point where I could take out my substantial director’s loan and start to draw down profits too. But how long would I have to wait?!
What was the outcome of the engagement with BMIM Cash Flow?
Bibi came in to analyse our cash position, and to be honest, I couldn’t see how she could come up with a solution that I hadn’t already tried. I was sceptical, but she painstakingly analysed our business and it forced me to consider new and creative options to reshape our processes to tackle my frustrating position. I knew everything looked good on paper, but that didn’t hold any clues as to how we could become more liquid.
After a very short time, Bibi had forced me to let go of some of my entrenched perceptions of the business and we eventually reached our ‘eureka’ moment together.
We have now implemented a new internal system at no extra cost to the company, and while this will take a few more weeks to filter down, I know this is going to make the difference I was hoping for, and we could not be more grateful!
- Sue Nelson, CEO, Breakthrough Funding
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