Cash flow Clue-doh! The Mystery is Revealed…

Over 1,500 colleagues have now downloaded our cash-flow murder mystery activity - Cash Flow Clue-doh! And we’re getting an increasing number of enquiries asking what the solution is!

Rated: (5/5), based on 2 reviews

Managing Cash Flow - Beware the Economic Recovery

An excellent recent article in the ACCA magazine examines an interesting phenomenon - more businesses collapse at the beginning of a recovery than during the depths of a recession. Its all to do with working capital…

Rated: (5/5), based on 2 reviews

A Day in the Life - Cash Flow Forecasting

This is a good starter activity for cash flow forecasting.

At the start of the lesson, I tell students that I am going to tell them what I did on the previous Saturday, ‘a day in my life’, and that they need to listen carefully.

I start off by saying something along the lines of, “I get up, get showered and get ready. I have £30 in my pocket. I walk to the metro station and on the way buy a newspaper and a bottle of Diet Coke costing £1.50. The metro costs £4.00 into town...”

I then describe a number of instances where I spend cash and receive cash. For receiving cash I say that I am returning some clothes to a number of shops and that I meet my brother who gives me back some money he owes me.

I then ask the kids to tell me how much money I have in my pocket at the end of the day.

Bingo. A mini-cash flow statement.

You normally need to do it twice and it works brilliantly with mini-whiteboards if the kids write down the ‘cash in’ and then the ‘cash out’.

I then move into ‘formal cash flow’.

The kids like it and you can make your day as ‘interesting’ as you like.

Enjoy..........

‘I read the news today, Oh boy’

Workforce planning - getting ready for swine flu

The swine flu pandemic has the potential to cause substantial disruption to the operations and workforces of many businesses - large and small.  Forget the media hysteria.  Employers around the UK are now being given direct advice on how to prepare for the potential storm…

Small businesses waiting for the upturn

The ten small businesses which are being followed by the BBC month-by-month throughout 2009 are remaining defiantly optimistic, with most of them reporting confidence ‘marks out of ten’ at the same level as May, and three of them more optimistic this month. Many seem to benefit from being in a niche market with very specialised products meaning they can really focus on their customers. They talk of expanding sales and taking on more staff, and some increased interest in UK products and producers. The hotel on the Isle of Wight is benefitting from sterling’s weakness this year causing an increase in holidays in the UK.

Several have changed their cost structures and looked for ways to strengthen their cash flow, for example by reducing reliance on credit for payments, and are hanging on and managing to break even while they hope for increased business in the near future, and there are concerns about how they will cope when interest rates rise again. There is still difficulty for those businesses which are related to the housing market, as solicitors or suppliers of joinery, and the most consistent worries remain those related to finance – lack of credit from the banks, lack of mortgages available to potential buyers, and poor credit ratings given to any relatively new small business regardless of their history. 

Cashflow-Cluedoh!

Our murder mystery game for cash flow analysis is now available to download…

Rated: (4/5), based on 8 reviews

How not to run a business - the Gordon Ramsay way

This might be well worth adding to your scheme of work as an up-to-date, celebrity-fuelled example of how a business can run into cash flow and other problems from over-expansion.

Q&A - Why are start-ups vulnerable to cash flow problems?

Start-ups and small businesses are especially vulnerable to cash flow problems. Here are some of the main reasons:

Why businesses fail - an interview with Pepita Diamand

We featured the Wrapit business story in our AQA AS Business Unit 1 revision workshops in December 2008.  Students were asked to evaluate two alternative business start-ups - one of which turned out to be the failed wedding gift lists service Wrapit.  Now the co-founder of Wrapit has given an in-depth interview which provides a rich source of insights for our students into why businesses fail…

Q&A - Why is leasing and hire purchase a source of finance?

Leasing is another word for renting assets (e.g. property) over a period of time.  Leasing is a way of financing the use of such assets without actually having to buy them outright.