What’s Happening Down Under?
Australasian Council News and monthly tip to help grow your business:
2018 is looking to be a positive year for RIA in Australia. This year we are looking forward to the third RIA event in Australia, which will be bigger and better now that RIA has taken on the responsibility of running the successful yearly Australian restoration conference.
As the event is focused on education, RIA will be running two RIA designation courses surrounding the event. Michael Pinto will be running the CMP course for those who have completed the prerequisite courses, and Chris Shoemaker will be running the Building Science Drying course.
The Australasian Vendor committee has organized a golf day open for all levels of skill designed to help wind down and enjoy some networking and fun.
The event will be focused on technical information to help business and their employees grow their knowledge and meet like-minded industry professionals.
Put the event on your calendar:
June 6-8, 2018, ― Twin Waters Resort Maroochydore Queensland, Australia
We hope to see you all there!
New Australasian Membership Committee Chairperson
This month we have enlisted one of our serving council members as the new membership committee chairperson. Penny Tralau from Mould Rescue has taken the role. One of Penny’s goals is to increase membership through educating our local restoration industry in the benefits of being part of the RIA community and taking advantage of the global networking, information and training that RIA offers. Penny lives and breaths networking; she sees it as one of the most powerful tools business can use to help with growth. We are looking forward to establishing some further initiatives and programs for our local members and encourage our members to take advantage of the opportunities RIA offers.
Cash Flow
This month, we have had many businesses talking about the problems with insurers and TPAs not paying invoices on time and the difficulties managing cash flow. This seems to be a common conversation among restoration businesses in Australia and NZ; therefore, we asked Nick Wormald to give some pointers on how to help businesses that are struggling with cash flow. Nick Wormald is a well-respected financial professional in Australia, and his business offers a number of products to help fund businesses when experiencing cash flow issues.
4 ways to boost cash-flow
Cash flow is critical to any business. If you have this precious cash sitting with your suppliers waiting for stock or sitting with customers waiting for payment, it’s a good chance you are slowly suffocating your business.
Here are four simple methods to free this cash up, reeling it back into your business to be used for growth.
- Self Financing/Bootstrapping:
Put simply, this is where the business owner injects their own funds into the business to support operations and trade until they are paid by their clients.
Example: Using savings to make payments to the ATO or suppliers.
- Supplier Finance:
The supplier finances your purchase changing the terms of trade.
Example: You import t-shirts, and your supplier requires payment on shipment. The t-shirts land in your warehouse 45 days later, creating a 45-day cash flow gap.
Your supplier offers you (finance) terms of trade allowing you to “delay” payment for 45 days and keeping this cash in the business. They may require a fee for this service.
- Invoice Finance:
This facility allows you to borrow the money owed to you on an outstanding invoice, covering the gap in cash flow until the invoice is paid.
Example: You have an invoice outstanding for $100,000 with 90-day payment terms.
You borrow $80,000 of the invoice and use this for working capital in the business. When the invoice is paid, you collect the remaining $20,000 minus the fees.
- Trade Finance:
Trade finance allows a business to use borrowed funds to pay suppliers.
Example: You borrow $100,000 to buy t-shirts that will take 45 days to land. Once they are delivered to your warehouse (unless otherwise agreed with lender), you pay the lender $100,000 and fees.
For more information on these options, especially for our Australian and NZ members, Nick has offered to give some further advice to anyone in need of some help with funding cash flow.