Mastering Cash Flow in Uncertain Times

The order book holds up, but the bank account doesn't follow. Customers who used to pay in 30 days now ask for 60 or 90, some invoices go unpaid, and every supplier due date turns into a balancing act. Inflation, rising procurement costs, geopolitical turbulence and payment terms that keep stretching: in this lastingly uncertain economic climate, many Tunisian SME owners reach the same conclusion — what threatens the business in the short term isn't revenue, it's cash flow. Here is how to take back control, methodically.

Cash flow: what exactly are we talking about?

Cash flow refers to all the liquidity a company has immediately available — the money in its bank accounts and till, less the debts falling due in the very short term. It is the fuel that pays salaries, suppliers and overheads, whatever the accounting result at year-end.

The distinction matters, especially in troubled times: a company can be profitable (it sells for more than it costs to produce) and still end up unable to meet its payments if the money from its sales arrives too late. This is the classic squeeze: you pay for purchases and salaries in cash or on short terms, but you collect from customers at 60 or 90 days. In between, the account drains.

In normal times, that gap is absorbed by reserves or an authorised overdraft. In uncertain times, terms lengthen on both sides, reserves melt away, and the smallest delay can tip over a healthy business. Hence a simple rule: when the future becomes unpredictable, cash flow moves to priority number one, ahead even of revenue growth.

Reflex number one: track accounts receivable in real time

Accounts receivable is the total value of the invoices you have issued but that remain unpaid at a given date. It is the first indicator to watch, because it is money that already belongs to you but is sitting with your customers. The larger the balance grows, the tighter your cash position becomes.

Yet in many SMEs nobody knows that figure precisely: you have to open a binder, cross-check bank statements against invoice copies, and by the time you have a number it is already several days old. That is precisely the worst moment to be flying blind.

The indicators to bring under control

• Total receivables: how much your customers owe you, across all accounts, today.
• The aged balance: that total broken down by age (not yet due, 1 to 30 days late, 31 to 60 days, more than 60 days). It shows where the risk is concentrated.
• DSO (Days Sales Outstanding, the average customer payment delay): the average number of days between issuing an invoice and collecting the money. If it moves from 35 to 55 days, your customers are financing you less and you have to make up the difference.
• Your top debtors: the five or ten customers who weigh most heavily in your receivables. That is where effective follow-up frees up the most cash.

A good management system calculates these figures automatically, because the invoice, the due date and the payment all live in the same place. Instead of a weekly compilation exercise, the business owner opens a management dashboard and immediately sees where the outstanding money sits.

Follow up early, follow up systematically

Collection is not a chore you handle "when there's time": it is a process that must be regular, escalating and impersonal. Studies on payment terms all point to the same conclusion: what makes the difference is not the firmness of a single reminder, it is the consistency of the follow-up.

A follow-up cadence that works

1. Before the due date (D-3 to D-5): a courteous message noting that the invoice is about to fall due. It confirms the customer received it, surfaces any dispute early and prevents plain oversight — the most common cause of delay.
2. First day of delay (D+1): a firm but cordial reminder. The customer understands that you track your due dates closely.
3. Intermediate follow-up (D+8 to D+15): a more insistent payment notice, restating the amount, the reference and the payment details.
4. Formal notice (D+30): a formal letter, the step that precedes escalation and underpins any further action.

The classic mistake is over-personalising and chasing customers case by case. A systematic process, applied identically to everyone, is both more effective and less awkward: it is no longer a personal judgement, it is company policy. Standardising these follow-ups also means making payment tracking reliable so that no receivable slips through the cracks.

Build a rolling cash flow forecast

Tracking receivables looks at the past and the present. To stay ahead rather than react, you also need to look forward: that is the role of the cash flow forecast, a table that projects, week by week, expected cash in and planned cash out, to derive the cash position to come.

The goal is not perfect prediction — impossible in uncertain times — but anticipation: spotting the air pocket two or three weeks before it hits, while you still have levers (speed up a follow-up, negotiate supplier terms, tap a reserve), rather than discovering the overdraft on the day itself.

A mini four-week forecast

The principle fits into a simple table. You start from the opening balance, add expected cash in (based on the real due dates of your invoices, not their issue dates), subtract known cash out, and obtain the closing balance — which becomes the opening balance of the following week.

Line item (in TND)	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Opening balance	18,000	14,500	9,200	12,700
+ Expected customer payments	9,500	6,700	15,500	11,000
− Salaries & social contributions	—	—	9,000	—
− Supplier payments	11,000	10,800	2,000	7,500
− Tax due dates (VAT, etc.)	2,000	1,200	1,000	3,000
= Closing balance	14,500	9,200	12,700	13,200

In this example, week 2 shows a low point (9,200 TND) just before salaries go out in week 3: the owner knows today that they need to push the large receivable expected in week 3, or shift a supplier payment, to get through without strain. That is exactly the kind of signal a forecast exists to give — in advance.

In stable times, this table is updated once a month. In uncertain times, switch to a weekly rhythm over a rolling 8 to 13-week horizon: each week that passes, you add a week to the horizon and refresh the assumptions with the payments that actually landed.

Securing collections: multi-channel payments and reconciliation

The faster and more reliably money comes in, the lighter the receivables burden. Two concrete levers, often neglected, speed up and secure incoming cash.

Collect through every channel without losing track

Your customers pay by cheque, bank transfer, cash, bill of exchange or on-the-spot payment in the field. The risk is not the payment method itself, it is fragmentation: a cheque forgotten in a drawer, a transfer never reconciled, a field collection jotted down in a notebook. Every unrecorded payment means a pointless reminder sent to a customer who has already paid — and a damaged relationship.

Centralising every payment method in a single system, each one matched to the right invoice and the right account, guarantees that the receivables figure on screen reflects reality. For companies selling in the field, uploading the day's route collections at the end of each day stops payments from staying invisible to head office for days.

Bank reconciliation, an essential safeguard

Bank reconciliation means comparing, line by line, the movements recorded in your management system with those on the bank statement. It is what reveals an expected payment that never arrived, a bounced cheque, unforeseen bank charges or a data-entry error. Without regular reconciliation, your "theoretical" balance quietly drifts away from the real one — and the surprises always come at the worst moment.

Done weekly rather than monthly, reconciliation turns your cash position from an approximate figure into a reliable number you can decide on.

Action plan: regain control in 7 steps

If your cash is tight and you don't know where to start, here is a concrete sequence, from the quickest win to the most structural:

1. Establish your real receivables today and identify your ten largest open invoices.
2. Follow up on that top 10 immediately, starting with the oldest overdue items.
3. Put a written follow-up cadence in place (D-3, D+1, D+15, D+30) and apply it to every invoice without exception.
4. Build an 8-week forecast and refresh it every Monday.
5. Centralise all your collections (cheque, transfer, cash, field) in one place, each matched to the right invoice.
6. Reconcile your bank every week to make the available balance trustworthy.
7. Negotiate before you go into overdraft: supplier terms requested early, from a partner's position, land far better than a delay you simply impose.

These seven steps do not require an abundant cash position: they require discipline and a little tooling. Most can be put in place within days and produce a visible effect in the first month.

When the tool makes the difference

You can track cash flow in a spreadsheet, and many owners start that way. The limits appear quickly: the spreadsheet doesn't "know" that an invoice has just been paid, everything has to be re-keyed, the figures diverge between sales, accounting and the bank, and the forecast becomes wrong the moment you stop maintaining it by hand.

A finance module built into the management system changes things, because the data is connected: the invoice you issue creates the due date, the payment you record settles it, receivables recalculate, the forecast updates and the reconciliation is prepared — with no double entry. The owner no longer spends evenings compiling numbers: they read them, up to date, and decide.

This is the approach behind Swifto's Finance & Cash Flow module, which brings together multi-channel collections, payment notices and follow-ups, payment schedules and bank reconciliations, all connected to invoicing and the dashboard. Combined with a management solution designed for Tunisian SMEs and compliant with local tax rules, it turns cash flow control into a daily routine rather than a monthly source of anxiety.

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