Five Bad Financial Decisions Known to Sink Businesses

Financial Crisis

You may have the best business ideas, but you will face difficulty functioning in the market for long without a proper financial strategy. If you don’t have the funds to support your business and make your ideas come to life, your company has little worth. 

Of course, finding the capital to kickstart your business is just the beginning. The real challenge is keeping cash flowing and investing in a way that helps your business grow.

The second most prominent reason why start-up businesses fail during the initial years of their launch is due to financial shortcomings. Lack of capital has caused companies to shut down even before they could bring their vision to life. 

If you are lucky enough to cross the starting point in Australia, contributing dedicated funds to your company is the key to staying afloat in the market. Not to state the obvious, but if you run out of money, your company will sink. However, the process is more complex than it initially seems. 

Financial decisions play a vital role in this regard, and one wrong investment decision can become the bane of your company’s existence. To help expand upon this topic and explore different ways businesses sink, here are critical financial decisions to watch out for. 

1. Excessive spending 

One of the most crucial common mistakes is overestimating your funds and, as a result, spending frivolously on everything. We understand that you want the best for your company, but overspending can become the cause of your company’s downfall.

For this reason, you must always hire a financial advisor in the city you are in the process of establishing your company. For example, if you are situated anywhere in Perth, type in financial advisor Perth on Google to find a reliable financial advisor to guide you about the local market. 

There is a common saying that goes that a man loses great fortune one dollar at a time. A couple of extra dollars spent on the interior of your office or product may not seem like much, but they add up quickly on the finance sheets. 

You’ll need the expertise because each market and its economic demands vary in many different aspects. A financial advisor can help you make intelligent investments and help you maintain your budget.

2. Not maintaining cash flow 

Just like blood moves throughout your body and keeps you alive, the cash flow circulating your business keeps the company going as well. Therefore, if you are a start-up still establishing your foothold in the market, you must maintain your cash flow with strict precision. Any blind spot where the cash is spending can be the cause of your company’s downfall.

To manage this critical financial aspect of your business, you must first understand your company’s unique financial demands. Then, after observing and researching these demands, you can create a strategy with your financial planners to manage the cash flow.

The industry and niche you choose and the stability in attracting and retaining your clients will affect your company’s financial matters. It will impact future finances and cash flow aspects of the business. Therefore, to create a strategy, you must understand the nature of the market and your clients and then project the finances for a specific period in the future. 

All of the research, projection, and planning will help you manage the ins and outs of your cash flow in the company, keeping you afloat in the market.

3. Hiring carelessly 

Hiring unsuitable candidates for important positions in the company can cost you thousands of dollars. Hence, negligent hiring is a sure scheme for financial troubles for the company.

When you recruit a candidate for a job, you have to make cuts for their hiring, training, equipment, and wage. But an unsuitable recruit can affect your company’s work quality and become a barrier to productivity, creating financial issues. 

An unsuitable recruit can cost you in the form of low productivity and even clients. One too many of such hirings and your business can sink. Therefore, you mustn’t make haste during the recruiting procedure and take the necessary steps to hire suitable candidates for the job.

4. Blurring the line between personal and business expenditures 

Running a business is a fantastic achievement, and you may be enticed by the cash flow in the earlier years. But if you don’t maintain separate personal and business finances, you will eventually pay a heavy price. 

Spending cash on personal needs from the company’s cash flow reservoir can create minor dents in the finances. 

If there are enough of these dents, the whole roof can fall at once, and all of a sudden, you’ll find yourself low on funds. You will be out of funds for essential investments and out of options. This practice can land you in a lot of trouble which could mean closing up shop.

5. Accumulating credit card debt 

Many business owners project future revenue and invest by incurring debt from their credit cards. But the unpredictability of the market can cause shifts in many aspects, producing results that you did not expect. 

For example, if you’re planning a big project with an expected revenue, you may not hesitate in getting debt through any means. But if you don’t consider the factors that can affect your revenue project or any unprecedented event causing barriers in your progress, you will be unable to pay your debt. 

The debt will continue to accumulate over time as interests add up, and your business can sink as a result.

The reason why business owners use credit cards so leisurely is because they’re convenient. It is enticing to overlook interest rates and the compounding expenses that top up as time goes on. But, if you don’t repay the debt completely, it can lead to bankruptcy.

Conclusion

Losing the hold on your finances is more effortless than bringing in cash. Though almost every business has to face some financial loss during their progress, there should be a limit to it. A single financial decision shouldn’t have the power to ruin your finances and sink your business.

Generally, the financial issues that cause a business to sink result from a series of bad decisions. But if you pay more attention to your company’s cash flow, eradicate blind spots, and strategize according to the current market situation, you can avoid these mistakes. 

Moreover, even if you make such mistakes, you can take immediate actions to compensate for the loss before they cause irreplaceable damage to your company.

To make financial decisions more secure, you must create strategies with the help of experts that can help you scale your business. However, one approach is not applicable at all times. As your business grows, you will have to update your strategy so that your business can thrive.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of The World Financial Review.