Small businesses share their tips for better cash flow and payment collection

Small businesses share their tips for better cash flow and payment collection

Quick summary

• Real business insights: Four business owners share their secrets for reducing payment complexity and taking back control of their time.

• Faster cash flow: Learn how automating your payment process and shortening payment terms can eliminate the stress of chasing invoices.

• Integrated efficiency: Discover how automating payments and connecting GoCardless to tools like Xero helps businesses grow faster.

Running a business presents numerous challenges. Cash flow is the heartbeat of a small business. But getting paid is something many businesses might overlook, and it isn’t always so straightforward. 

Oliver Springate, Founder and Head of Strategy at digital marketing agency, Bambu, described his experience: “I think coming into running my own business, there was a degree of naivety about how easy it is to get paid. You'd assume you send an invoice, and somebody's going to send you money the next day or the next week. And in a lot of cases, that just wasn't happening."

Oliver isn’t alone. Many businesses find that manual processes lead to chasing, stress, and expensive fees. But failed payments don't have to be a hassle. To help you face these challenges head-on, we asked four business owners to share their secrets for reducing complexity and taking back control of their time. 

Here is what they had to say about improving cash flow and building a better payment process.

What's one thing a business can do to improve its cash flow?

Ali Shariat, Co-Founder of ThisWayUp, helps ecommerce brands sell on marketplaces. He talks to us about the importance of payment terms on getting paid on time:

See how ThisWayUp are improve their cashflow:

Rory Hackett, Founder of liv. Technology helps design, install, and support smart home and business automation technologies. He shares his thoughts on leveraging cash advances that’re linked to his GoCardless revenue with Capital powered by Pipe, to grow his business:

"For businesses looking for help with their cash flow, capital options are always a key one. I think because of the fact that Capital powered by Pipe is linked to GoCardless, there's proof there that we are collecting the money that we are collecting, and we've got a good track record.

And I think the fact that the payments are collected at source as opposed to after the fact is a key detail that maybe sets GoCardless and Pipe apart from others, because have that transparency built in. A lot of the time, with other capital providers, you can provide them with bank details, but it doesn't really tell the story properly.

And so I think that with this tie-up, it gives much more insight to both the businesses that they're backing a business which can afford to repay its debts."

Discover more about how businesses can utilise Capital powered by Pipe to make the most of every opportunity, and get capital when you need it.

Oliver Springate, Founder and Head of Strategy, Bambu shares how important it is to create and send invoices promptly:

“The thing that any business can do to improve their cash flow, and certainly was the thing that we've done, is simply get invoices out faster, and shorten that window between sending an invoice and getting paid. 

One thing I've always found is that it's great to put a payment due date on the invoice, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the date you're going to get paid. Not always without a lot of hassle to actually get that payment through. So sending invoices as soon as possible and having a payment process that can take that payment as quickly as possible has been a real game-changer for us.”

Did you know you can connect your GoCardless account to Xero and automate your payments with your invoicing and save valuable time on admin and reconciliation, like Bambu has?

What advice would you give other small businesses that are reviewing their payment processes?

Lee Suter, Club Development Manager, Faversham Strike Force Football Club, shares his thoughts on automating payment collection and GoCardless as a payment solution for other sports clubs:

“We would definitely recommend grassroots community clubs to join GoCardless if you're looking for an easy, automated way to collect regular payments without the worry of having to reconcile them yourself and having those awkward conversations around chasing payments.”

Rory Hackett, Founder, Liv. Technology raises the question of how long you are spending on your payment processes and how to automate the process:

"The advice I would give to another company that is looking at how they collect payments is how much time is it really taking you to do that? And what do your customers think if they are having to chase you for an invoice copy, or there's some other problem that's causing them not to make that payment to you, in the same way that we used to experience with people trying to pay by cheque. If you use a system like GoCardless, it really becomes pretty hands-free. And I think that is a big plus."

Zamir, Co-Founder, ThisWayUp, echoes Rory’s sentiment, in looking at the time you spend chasing payments and the stress it can cause: “I think if a small business is reviewing its payment process, one of the key things I would say is look at all of the time that you're actually spending on payments, and you will find it's far beyond the hours that you're just chasing them. So all that time that you're spending thinking about it or stressing about it. The problem with cash flow, and if you have any restrictions in there, it impacts every other part of your business. And the problem just scales as your business does.

Oliver Springate, Founder and Head of Strategy, Bambu builds on both Zamir and Rory’s comments, saying how important it is to look beyond fees: "The thing that I would say to anyone I speak to who's considering changing payment processes is just not to focus too much on the fees. We work with a lot of e-commerce businesses. Margins are relatively thin these days, and the first thing that everyone thinks about is the fees.

It's how much they're going to spend to acquire a customer, how much they're going to spend to deliver the product to them, and how much they're to spend on payment processing. I think for us using GoCardless, there's been so much more to it.

It's not just about the money we spend on transferring that payment. It's about what we save in terms of time, stress, and defaulted payments that we're just simply never going to get back.”

See how Bambu are saving valuable time and keeping client meetings on track: