Business Debtline
Provides expert debt advice to the self-employed and small businesses online and over the phone.
Find the right tools to support your business in difficult times
Left unchecked, financial difficulties can have more serious consequences. But many can be resolved relatively easily – here are a number of simple actions that you can take.
Short-term cashflow problems will often be caused by underlying profitability issues in the medium to longer term.
When analysing your business, you should consider the following things.
1. Sales strategy
There are a number of steps you can take, such as
Remember that to be successful, you often have to be seen to differentiate or add value, perhaps by offering a niche product or service.
See our in-depth guide to writing a business plan [PDF, 6.2MB].
Help identify profitability issues for your business with our profitability healthcheck [PDF, 100KB].
2. Margin improvements
The generic sales strategy may also be driven by more detailed analysis of margins. These are directly impacted by two elements: sales price and cost of sales.
3. Cost reductions
As well as focusing on the margin, you should also look at ways to reduce indirect costs, such as
If you’re worried your business is showing signs of financial difficulty, it’s important to let us know – the sooner, the better.
You can do this either through your usual Barclays contact or by visiting our contact pages.
So we can give you the right kind of support, it’ll be useful for you to do the following before talking to us
If you’re facing challenges that mean you need extra support from us or different services than usual, please let us know and we’ll see how we can help.
If you’d like some impartial and confidential advice, here are some organisations that might be able to support you. They can help you prioritise your debts and work out your business budget, which is an essential starting point to help tackle debt problems.
Getting advice won’t affect your credit score or involve a credit check.
Provides expert debt advice to the self-employed and small businesses online and over the phone.
Provides impartial personal-debt advice to people across the UK, online and over the phone.
Provides advice on a broad range of topics including personal debt and benefits, face to face, over the phone and online.
Provides business support services and impartial advice to companies in Scotland.
A government agency that provides services and guidance to businesses experiencing financial distress.
The Business Emergency Resilience Group (BERG) helps UK businesses prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding, cyber attacks and civil unrest.
Provides homes for farming families living in England and Wales who have to leave the industry and by doing so will lose their home.
The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI) provides support for farmers if they are in financial difficulty and of limited means.
Provides free and impartial guidance on a variety of topics.
Get expert advice and fee-free debt management.