How to assess your Cashflow to keep your travel business afloat

Have you ever put together a 'Budget' for your travel business? Or been told - you NEED to have a budget so you know what you can spend?    Well, when I think about budgeting, it scares me to bits. Why would I want to be restricted and whenever I have put together a personal budget, I've been depressed. What do you mean I can't go out to dinner more than once per month! Haha   However when you own a business, money is important. You need it to survive. And one of the easiest ways I have found that WORKS for our travel business, is to keep an eye on cashflow.    Why? Because in travel, you may have a client book now, travel in a few months and you don't get the commission until after they leave. This means that you are doing the work now, and having to wait for a portion of payment. SO, in your travel business. This ultimately says you need to look at your cashflow and prepare for the ebs and flows of the money coming in.    Making predictions based on FACTS. Preparing for the tougher months and also those where cashflow is good.    I wanted to discuss this topic as we start to reopen our businesses, as you start to get clients booking, what can you do to prepare for the future.    To track expenses and predict those in the future as well as track your sales and what is potentially coming in and plan ahead.    Looking back to March 2020, I already knew what money was to come into the business for that month and really evaluated and took a good hard look at our travel business to see where we could pull in the expenses strings, without losing the things that were important to me. Education, community, clients. Assessing what I could and couldn't potentially do moving forward - at least for a few months.   I took the opportunity to look at my finances and planned ahead.    Using a cash flow forecasting tool was a real game-changer. It showed me my financial capacity, how long could I stay afloat without having to think about a business loan, and what things do I need to keep me, my family, my team, and my business secure. I believe that this is what every travel business owners need to have and do especially right now.    Our guest on this episode, Louise Delaney isn't an accountant. I specifically chose to speak to her for this reason. However, she loves numbers and is an expert in cash flow forecasting. She is a business owner herself so she knows and understands how and what we feel about managing our finances.    We discuss the importance of cash flow for our travel business, how to do this, tips and how to manage it.    We have a perfect time now to look at our cash flow and really project and work towards building a more solid, more successful travel business in the future.    Louise has tools that you can use for your business on her website, Cash Flows For You. These have been put together with simplicity, and ease of use in mind. She can also be able to help you get a real picture of how much you have financially and how much you need to keep everything afloat.    Louise is also a guest speaker in our Achievers Mastermind next month where we will be talking about Revenue Planning.  If you want to know more about cash flow and have a plan set up for your travel business, sign up now! www.travelagentachievers.com/TheAchievers We'd also love to have you in the Achievers in Travel - Facebook group, make sure you join the FREE community. Achievers in Travel - Accountability group.