Your sheets should have two-year comparisons.
How much money do you have in your account?
How much did you have this time last year?
Is your cash down from last year?
The warning bells should be ringing in your head.
Is your cash up only marginally?
That’s another warning sign.’
Businesses must have cash to keep operating.
Are you margins shrinking? That’s alarming.
It may be the fault of a poor economy.
It may mean your sales people are letting you down.
It may mean they aren’t taking care of customers.
A car dealer you know had to take drastic steps.
He took over a dealership with sagging margins.
He watched the sales staff sit around the showroom.
They drank coffee. Compared golf scores.
Waited for customers to come to them.
He compared their sales records.
Three sales people produced 80% of the sales.
The other 12 produced less than 20%.
He fired the 12 poor performers.
He worked with the sales force to produce results.
They stepped up advertising, phone calls, direct mail.
Showroom traffic increased. Revenues rose.
How often do you make bank deposits?
Daily? Weekly? Even less often.
Undeposited checks slow your cash flow.
Work it out with your bank to deposit by scanner.
You can scan checks in and send them electronically.
Our bank wanted to charge us for this service.
A rival bank waived the fee and won our business.
Here’s another safeguard tactic.
Check your bank deposit slips.
Compare them with your bank statements.
Make sure the two documents match.
Make sure the payments go to your account.
Not someone else’s account.
Next: We’ll discuss three more safeguards to take.
