Are You Having A Cash Flow Nightmare?

A number of years ago I started a software company that developed a specialized cash flow forecasting and business budgeting software program designed to help management forecast future financial activities by predicting profit or loss, and future cash flow requirements of their business. The main premise of the program was to provide an understanding of how long cash will last and if a profit will be made. Having this information would provide management sufficient time to secure funds to keep the business running if cash was to become scarce.

I started my company with about $200,000. I knew it would be more than enough to get the company into a profitable position. After several months the burn rate of cash was far beyond my expectations. I was just about out cash and my resources were tapped out.

One night at around 3 AM, I was in great pain. I was having a cash flow nightmare. I was starring at the ceiling with major anxiety wondering what do I do?  What made it worse I was the managing partner of a very successful CPA firm in Southern California. We had never had a cash flow problem and had never run out of cash. Here I was having a new painful experience…the pain of running out of cash. Not knowing what’s going to happen. It was awful. The anxiety was beyond anything I had ever felt during my business career. I knew it was just days before my dream was to end.

Have you guessed it yet? I developed a cash flow software program designed to predict profit and cash flow and I hadn’t used it for my own business.  Here I was a CPA telling people how important it is to predict profitability and cash flow and not following my own advice. Shame, shame on me for not practicing what I have preached for so many years.

I immediately jumped out of bed, threw on some jeans and headed for my laptop. I needed to get a handle on just how long the little cash I had would last. I entered my assumptions, crunched the numbers…and was shocked to discover that the disaster I was sure of was at least three months away. Suddenly, there was no more anxiety; I had some time left to fulfill my dream. Best of all, I had the time to do what was needed to get the resources and keep the company going.

So now, by my own experience, I discovered sleepless nights are not unusual. In fact, they are all-too-common. Whenever I ask entrepreneurs if they have ever had a cash flow nightmare as I described, I get a resounding yes!

Most anxiety is produced from fear of the future. Today more then ever a glimpse of what lies ahead is an absolute must. So I’ve started a new venture, along with providing the software I spoke of, called gohagit.com. We help companies develop an Early Warning System so entrepreneurs can take a look at where they’re going. If they don’t like what they see there will be plenty of time to take action before its to late. By the way, my software company just celebrated 20 years in business!

Harvey

*Contact me if you would like some guidance or to talk about our service or our software. You can reach me at 1-800-873-7789 or harvey@gohagit.com
www.cashplan.com | www.gohagit.com