If you own a business whether that is an online business or an off-line business with a website you might want to get press releases out there on the Internet.

in-business has a business forum for various business discussions and it also has a ‘Press Release’ Section.

So if your business has a new press release and you want to post it on oue business forum, then please feel free to do so!

Here at in-business.org.uk we would like to wish all of our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

If you are looking for some ideas on New Year’s Resolutions then these might help…

1. If you have an idea for a new business and if till now you have been putting it off…make a resolution to commit to taking your business idea forward in 2010! Read about How to Start a Small Business.

2. If you are bad at doing your filing (Like me) then how about promising to keep up-to-date with your filing in 2010.

3. If you have been thinking about ‘Writting a Business Plan‘ and a cash flow forecast for your existing business and been putting this off…stop putting it off and get to it! Make 2010 the best year ever for your business…write a business plan and set your business in the right direction – Don’t fail to implement!

4. If you are too busy doing things in your business and doing what I consider ‘Working In’ your business…promise to start delegating in 2010 and start ‘Working On’ your business in 2010. Learn how to delegate task in your business!

5. If you are not sure about where your customers are coming from and you do not measure your advertising costs versus your new client inflows…consider s New Year’s resolution of starting to ‘Measure and Manage’ your business. Also consider starting a ‘Marketing Calendar’. Develop your business Key Performance Indicators or KPIs.

Whatever your New Year’s resolution for 2010 and whatever you do in your business

I am again saddened and annoyed at the Unions and their short sighted view over the company that the staff they represent work for, that being British Airways.

The unfortunate insight they have missed is that the damage they are doing, not only to present customers and the damage to goodwill, but also to their long-term goodwill. Please don’t let this icon of a company go the way the British Car Industry and Coal Industry went, which were both destroyed by the British Unions – work together with the company to make the company profitable and ensure it’s future.

If anyone is a worker for British Airways and they happen to read this article – I would like to appeal to you and ask you to re-consider your views on strike action. If the staff of British Airways strike now during the festive period, not only are you destroying peoples holidays, wedding arrangements and Christmas’s, but you are also putting a huge nail in the coffin of the company’s future – thereby jeopardising your jobs.

I am certain a huge percentage of the people who will be affected by this strike would never book with British Airways ever again and it would make me think twice about booing a flight with them too, that’s for sure.

The government has to be answerable to this situation too and I think they should step in and change the legislation on Union powers. I am of the opinion, if staff are not happy in their work or in what the company is doing, then move on and get another job with another company or in another industry – don’t be selfish.

Unions need to recognise that there is a deep recession going on right now and that the airline industry is going through a tough time – British Airways made a stonking loss of over £400 million last year and will likely make an even bigger loss this year. No company can survive these types of losses and the management must make cost savings. If the company makes a loss then it is in real danger of going out of business. If British Airways goes out of business then no one will have a job – so that will have achieved nothing, except for the destruction of the company.

There is of course the possibility of a takeover and I am sure that Sir Richard Branson is rubbing his hands together right now and contemplating this eventuality, but even with this outcome there will undoubtedly be redundancies – so I would argue having a job is better than no job at all.

Honesty in business is as it is in life and a must and extremely important.

If you are about to sell your business or if you are in the middle of selling it then make sure you are honest from the outset…not only with the broker, if you are using one, but also with potential buyers.

If you tell lies at the outset or during the initial stages then it is very likely this will be found out at the due diligence stage of the selling process. The problem with telling lies is that if they get found out you may put off potential buyers and lose their trust.

Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer and you will know that they will feel both stressed and worried about the whole process. Don’t make it worse for them by putting any element of doubt in their mind…they may be thinking if you are lying about one thing you might be covering up any number of other things and they may well walk away from the deal.

I remember going to look at a business which was being advertised as turning over around £8,000 per week, when in fact it was only turning over around £4-5,000 per week. Admittedly, at some point in the past this business had been doing this level of turnover and more, but the broker had not bothered to update their advert. This then wasted my time and their time in looking at a business which was highly over valued.

Always remember that with the majority of business sales that it is a ‘Buyers Market’ and rarely is it a ‘Sellers Market’ – which means that when you have a buyer on the hook, as it were, you want to play them well and nurture the whole business sales process from start to finish.

Article by Russell Bowyer

If you are looking to for advice on creating a cash flow forecast then here are a few tips and pointers.

Firstly you need to distinguish between what is ‘Revenue and Expenditure’ and what is ‘Cash Inflows and Cash Outflows’.

Let me explain this by way of an example:

When you raise a sales invoice to one of your customers there are differences between how this transaction affects profit and how the same transaction affects your bank balance and when.

Let’s say you raised the invoice on 28 November 2009 and the invoice was for £1,000 (net of VAT or Sales Tax). For profit and loss purposes you would include £1,000 in the November profit and loss account, which is very straight forward and quite obvious really. However, when it comes to recording the ‘Cash-effect’ of this same transaction you have to put a little more thought into how you record it.

Firstly, if you are a business that has to charge VAT or Sales Tax then the amount that you will receive (the Cash-Inflow) will be more than the £1,000. If the rate of VAT or Sales Tax was 15% then the amount of ‘Cash’ you will receive into your bank account will be £1,150 and not the net amount of the invoice. Also, not all customers pay you straight away and in some cases customers can take months to pay you. So let’s say that this particular customer pays you in 30-days time, which would be on 26 December 2009 (forgetting for the minute that this is in fact Boxing Day!). Therefore for cash flow purposes you would include £1,150 in the December cash flow forecast – giving you a timing difference.

Finally, you would then need to include the £150 as a ‘Cash-Out’ part of your cash flow forecast when you paid the VAT/Sales Tax to your Government, which might not be until February 2010.

There are other complications that might come into play with your profit and loss versus your cash flows and you will have a similar complications associated with business expenditure and how these interact with ‘Cash-outflows’.

The best way to prepare a cash flow forecast is to spend a bit of time planning it and reviewing what actually goes on within your business. You will also need to consider any capital expenditure you might be planning and how this impacts on your cash flow and how the depreciation of these assets impacts on your profit and loss account.

Article by Russell Bowyer