Why cash flow is the biggest risk your business faces

For a small business owner, there is no bigger issue than cash flow. Fewer than four in 10 UK companies make it past their fifth birthday, and the picture is measurably worse in Ireland: five-year survival for Irish businesses launched in 2018 was 47.6%, down from 67.3% for those launched in 2013 – a slide flagged by Department of Finance officials to Government in the Tax Strategy Papers this summer. Think about that for a second: more than half of business failures aren't down to a lack of vision, market fit or even profitability. They fail because they ran out of cash on a random Tuesday and couldn't cover payroll. That should terrify you slightly. The good news is that it's one of the most fixable problems in business, which makes it even more infuriating how many owners let it slide until it's a crisis.