Here we signpost some of the best cashflow forecast templates for UK business owners, which are available online for download – either free or low-cost. These cash flow planning tools should make forecasting easier in Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet formats.

Compassheet – Cashflow Template

On the Compassheet Cashflow Template website, you can find free spreadsheet templates, plus a wide range of advice and services.

Steve Carroll, the founder of cashflowtemplate.co.uk, is a Chartered Management Accountant. He is a licensed Member in Practice of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

He set up the Cashflow Template website to offer useful spreadsheet templates for Microsoft Excel and cashflow forecasting advice across a range of timely topics. Steve also runs Porterdale Business Consultancy based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

Visit cashflowtemplate.co.uk to find a Covid-19 cashflow template, a Job Retention Scheme Planner and more.

Small Business Cash Flow Templates from Microsoft

Adequate cash flow is of course essential to the survival of any business. This Microsoft template can help you predict whether your business will have enough cash to meet its obligations.

You may find it useful that projected cash balances below the minimum amount specified display in red. You can also see a chart of monthly balance projections.

Go to templates.office.com/en-in/small-business-cash-flow-projection-tm01113236.

British Business Bank

A cash flow forecast template available online as a free download. You can fill in the fields to automatically calculate total expenses and expected earnings.

This organisation works with a national network of delivery partners based in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Those Delivery Partners are responsible for assessing final applications and providing ongoing mentoring support to successful applicants, as well as helping applicants to prepare their business plans and cash flow forecasts.

Visit www.startuploans.co.uk/cash-flow-forecast-template/ for more information.

Vertex42

At Vertex42, you can download a free Cash Flow Statement template for Microsoft Excel. This cash flow tool can can augment your balance sheet and income statements.

Vertex42 is run to help professionals and business owners to manage their time, finances, education and careers as well as possible, by providing easy to use tools in the way of high-quality spreadsheet templates, documents, calculators, calendars, and advice. All are designed to help educate and increase the productivity of their users.

Their team offers a collection of over 400 unique spreadsheet templates, which have been designed and created in-house over more than a decade.

Learn more at www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/cash-flow-statement.html.

Excel Skills

At Excel Skills you can create 5-year cash flow projections with their unique annual cash flow forecast template. It includes annual income statements, cash flow reports and balance sheets.

The Excel Skills UK website is part of the global company that sells a unique range of Microsoft Excel templates in over 100 countries worldwide.

Visit www.excel-skills.co.uk/cash-flow-forecast-template.php to learn more.

ACCA

Your cashflow statement is an important management tool and will complement your business planning processes. Download guides and templates from this trusted accountancy organisation.

ACCA is the global trade body for professional accounts. They believe that accountancy is vital for economies to grow and prosper, which is why they work to build the profession and make society fairer and more transparent worldwide. The organisation has more than 227,000 fully qualified members and 544,000 future members across the globe.

See www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/business-finance/business-plans/example-cashflow.html for cashflow examples and templates.

Zervant

Download a free cash flow forecast template for Excel from Zervant. It is perfect for freelancers, sole traders, and small businesses in the UK.

Zervant was founded in 2010, and has since grown into a close-knit, hard working team of 40+ employees who are focused on making Europe’s best invoicing software. Currently their core markets are the UK, Germany, Finland, Sweden, France, Belgium and Austria.

See www.zervant.com/en/blog/free-uk-cash-flow-template/ for their UK cash flow template.

The Business Accounting Basics

Cashflow forecasting may be needed to secure future investment into a company or by management. Get advice on how to prepare a cash flow forecast and use this sample template.

The Business Accounting Basics website is designed to provide SMEs with the tools and information they need to complete their accounts. You will also find this site very useful if you are an accountancy student.

Go to www.businessaccountingbasics.co.uk/cash-flow-forecast/ for their template.

iwoca Ltd

A cash flow forecast should give you more clarity on the money coming in and out of your business over the coming months and years.

iwoca want small business owners to spend less time on paperwork and more time on running their businesses.

When a small business goes to the bank for finance, it can face long waits, endless forms and an absurdly rigid set of criteria. iwoca seeks to make the process less of a headache.

Visit www.iwoca.co.uk/finance-explained/cash-flow/ for tools and advice.

Smartsheet Cash Flow Forecast Template

Here you can download free templates for Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, as well as learning how to create a cash flow forecast.

To thrive amid the pressures of a dynamic environment, and especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, companies must simplify and streamline how their work is managed. The Smartsheet team believe that the most effective way to do that is with technology that everyone can find easy to use.

Visit https://www.smartsheet.com/content/cash-flow-forecast-templates to use their online tools.

 
Whether you run a small business or a larger company in the UK, you should find these websites and spreadsheet templates useful – even if you are new to cashflow forecasts.

The post Cashflow Forecast Templates for UK Business appeared first on County Web.

If you are looking for advice on how to start a blog for your business marketing and communication, read our easy, step by step guide. Blogging can be a great way to boost the online visibility of your business, raise your professional profile or simply connect with like-minded people.

Luckily, getting started with blogging has never been easier – today, anyone can start a blog for commercial reasons or as a hobby.

Here’s our step-by-step guide:

Choose your topic
You should blog about something you are highly knowledgeable or passionate about, whether it’s knitting, recruitment, saving money, films or whatever else is close to your heart. If you don’t choose a specific topic your blog can become very aimless. People won’t know what it’s really about and you will find it hard to target an audience.

Furthermore, the key to blogging is keeping it regular. This is much easier to do when you’re interested in the topic. People love to hear new ideas and opinions from thought leaders and experts.

Pick a platform
There are numerous platforms, free and paid for, to enable you to get your blogs on the internet and live for the world to see. Options include Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.com, Wix, TypePad and more. Issues to consider when making your choice include whether you want a specific web address, how tech savvy you are, how much customisation you need, what you need to spend and more.

Ask other bloggers for their feedback, read reviews online and try a few versions yourself before you make a final decision.

If you want to future-proof your blog and you can see it turning into a website and an asset in its own right, you may want to give it it’s own name with a .com, .co.uk or similar extension, rather than being a subdomain of a free blogging platform like those mentioned above. The free solutions will look like ‘yourblogname’.blogspot.com for example – not as professional looking as a .com or .co.uk

If you choose to do this, it’s cheap and very easy to start a blog and host it with BlueHost, who have 1-click installation of WordPress with your own domain name, and you can be set up in a few minutes. I have a few sites at BlueHost and recommend them as an affiliate because of the excellent customer support I have received from them.

You can set up a BlueHost account and start blogging with WordPress within minutes by starting at www.bluehost.com.

Make a plan
You’ll often start off blogging with the best intentions, but like anything else; life gets in the way. And there’s nothing sadder than an unattended blog! If you want to make a connection, build up a following and generate revenue, you have to keep your blogging regular.

However basic, it will help you to set up a simple content calendar so you have an idea of what you’re going to write about and when. This will help you factor in key dates and events in advance and will help keep your efforts on track.

Spruce it up
Make sure your blog looks visually appealing and is easy to use. Customisation of colour, layout, theme and branding is easy on most platforms and it may be worth investing in some expert designer help if you are looking for your website to be a commercial success.

Join the community
The blogosphere is an online community and getting involved will help you quickly grow your network, make connections and more. Comment on other blogs, respond to activity on your own site and throw yourself into social media to make the most of online opportunities.

Blogging really has never been easier – what’s stopping you?

The post How to Start a Blog for Your Business appeared first on County Web.

This brief article looks mainly at the marketing pros and cons of setting up a subsidiary company, as well some other factors to consider.

Staying As-Is

Pros of staying one large company

If you have been established for many years, that age gives potential clients a high degree of trust that you will still be there in 2, 5 or 10 years to support their needs. Your company name will form a lot of this trust and potential clients that hear the name could see this stability from a basic company search by name.

For recruitment, your current structure may show job hunters that they could work for a large company with potential sideways, as well as upward progression.

Potential clients will see a relatively large team with diverse skillsets, and likely back-up if key staff leave or are absent / unavailable.

In terms of the website and SEO, content added to an established site tends to have a chance of higher chance of gaining search engine traffic due to the strength of the website gained over many years when compared to a brand new site.

Cons of staying as-is

With your company’s history and depth of website content focused on its more established target market(s), this can sometimes overshadow a new division. The result is that some potential clients of the new division may report that the company is too focused elsewhere, while you may never even hear from other potential clients who discount your newer division without ever making an enquiry – these could even be a ‘silent majority’.

A wider downside of serving an increasingly diverse range of clients could also be that it is to the detriment of sales to your historically core market as well. Some potential clients may start to feel that you are spread too thin or lack expertise in their needs. The fact that you are likely to have niche competitors focused only on their needs means that when a customer wants a company who truly understands their needs, you may look too ‘Jack of All Trades’ to make their shortlist – even if that is not the case.

Forming a Subsidiary Company

Advantages of setting up a new company

A new website and company would create brand ‘focus’. Potential clients would likely gain reassurance from the fact that your new company understands its needs due to this focus, and has staff with the necessary specialist skills and experience.

Clients in the industry of your subsidiary would not complain of a perceived focus elsewhere, while your main brand could return to its roots of being specialists in its original core target market.

A separate company can negate the business risk to the parent company if something was to go wrong in the subsidiary – financially or legally.

For the purposes of liability, taxation and regulation, subsidiaries are distinct legal entities.

– Investopedia

Creating a subsidiary company from a major division seems to be a progressive move based on what many other large companies in such situations often seem to do.

Famous investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. has a long and diverse list of subsidiaries, including Clayton Homes, the Pampered Chef, GEICO Auto Insurance and Helzberg Diamonds.

– Investopedia

A new website focused on the needs of a specific target market may attract links from other website owners who want to signpost providers of services specific to this niche. Search engines may favour a focused website for phrases in this niche in the medium / long term vs a more generalised website.

Disadvantages of creating a separate company

A newly formed and / or a smaller company may look a less secure supplier to large corporate organisations and may even fail their due diligence assessments of company age and size.

A smaller team may appear to lack the depth of talent and staff back-up available in larger companies.

A basic company search for the subsidiary alone may fail to show a potential company the secure history of the parent company.

Signposting the parent company would be required as part of marketing activities to negate the risks above.

At least in the short-term, a new website would need time to gain trust and strength in order to compete in search against larger / more established websites.

Overall Summary

Creating a subsidiary company from an up and coming business division looks like the long-term progressive move from a marketing, finance and legal perspective, given the behaviour of many other large companies with distinct divisions.

There will be some headaches to overcome, such as the short term pain of creating new a new website, and taking care to reassure and signpost potential clients to the secure parent company background.

From a marketing perspective, creating a new website and subsidiary company for an offshoot division could give greater clarity to website visitors and potential clients looking to use solutions within both your historical and your relatively new target markets.

Related information elsewhere on the web:

http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/starting-a-business/setting-up-a-company/22496/starting-a-subsidiary-company.thtml (UK)

http://www.vernimmen.com/html/articles/article16.html (US)

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-opening-new-division-15843.html (US)

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/subsidiary.asp

The post Marketing Pros and Cons of Setting Up a Subsidiary Company appeared first on County Web.