Smart Scale Analytics

Revenue growth is exciting—it’s the headline number that gets everyone’s attention. But without healthy cash flow backing it up, that growth can quickly become a mirage. Cash flow is what keeps the lights on, pays the team, and fuels day-to-day operations. It’s the difference between a business that’s growing on paper and one that’s actually thriving in real time. When cash flow is strong, it gives you the flexibility to invest in new opportunities, weather unexpected challenges, and make strategic decisions with confidence. So while revenue tells the story of potential, cash flow is the proof that your business is truly sustainable.

So then measuring, quantifying and providing insight into cash flow with an eye towards providing actionable insights is critical. Some critical measures include the following:

Average Time to Collect – How long does it take me on average to get payment on a given invoice – across a wider group (customer, product, etc) do I do a weighted average or simple average (to account for wildly different amounts invoiced).

Time to collect by customer – which customers are paying the quickest? Are these the customers that I should prioritize fulfilling orders for first?

Do I collect within the payment terms that I’ve set out or negotiated with customers?

Then with all of these insights you can move into action. Do I need to hire someone to call customers about invoices? Do I need to start limiting shipments to customers that have too high of an open balance that is over a certain amount of time past due? Do I want to keep all of my customers when I know getting payment from one is a nightmare? Asking these questions to improve your cash flow situation is best done with the right information presented clearly to encourage decisions to be made on the information available at hand.

Good analytics allows you to go well beyond the traditional aging report and truly see trends and insights that make cash collection easier to track and improve because a good analysis will help you better figure out the best levers to use to improve cash collection.

Reach out if you want to learn more – I’d love to hop on a call and learn more about your business and your pain points – whether they’re related to cash flow or something else.

Shawn

shawn@smartscaleanalytics.com

508.212.4757 – Call or Text