dwaewnd.info

Business loans and finance for a business just may have gotten good again? The pursuit of credit and funding of cash flow solutions for your business often seems like an eternal challenge, even in the best of times, let alone any industry or economic crisis. Let’s dig in.

Since the 2008 financial crisis there’s been a lot of change in finance options from lenders for corporate loans. Canadian business owners and financial managers have excess from everything from peer-to-peer company loans, varied alternative finance solutions, as well of course as the traditional financing offered by Canadian chartered banks.

Those online business loans referenced above are popular and arose out of the merchant cash advance programs in the United States. Loans are based on a percentage of your annual sales, typically in the 15-20% range. The loans are certainly expensive but are viewed as easy to obtain by many small businesses, including retailers who sell on a cash or credit card basis.

Depending on your firm’s circumstances and your ability to truly understand the different choices available to firms searching for SME COMMERCIAL FINANCE options. Those small to medium sized companies ( the definition of ‘ small business ‘ certainly varies as to what is small – often defined as businesses with less than 500 employees! )

How then do we create our road map for external financing techniques and solutions? A simpler way to look at it is to categorize these different financing options under:

Debt / Loans

Asset Based Financing

Alternative Hybrid type solutions

Many top experts maintain that the alternative financing solutions currently available to your firm, in fact are on par with Canadian chartered bank financing when it comes to a full spectrum of funding. The alternative lender is typically a private commercial finance company with a niche in one of the various asset finance areas

If there is one significant trend that’s ‘ sticking ‘it’s Asset Based Finance. The ability of firms to obtain funding via assets such as accounts receivable, inventory and fixed assets with no major emphasis on balance sheet structure and profits and cash flow ( those three elements drive bank financing approval in no small measure ) is the key to success in ABL ( Asset Based Lending ).

Factoring, aka ‘ Receivable Finance ‘ is the other huge driver in trade finance in Canada. In some cases, it’s the only way for firms to be able to sell and finance clients in other geographies/countries.

The rise of ‘ online finance ‘ also can’t be diminished. Whether it’s accessing ‘ crowdfunding’ or sourcing working capital term loans, the technological pace continues at what seems a feverish pace. One only has to read a business daily such as the Globe & Mail or Financial Post to understand the challenge of small business accessing business capital.

Business owners/financial mgrs often find their company at a ‘ turning point ‘ in their history – that time when financing is needed or opportunities and risks can’t be taken. While putting or getting new equity in the business is often impossible, the reality is that the majority of businesses with SME commercial finance needs aren’t, shall we say, ‘ suited’ to this type of funding and capital raising. Business loan interest rates vary with non-traditional financing but offer more flexibility and ease of access to capital.

We’re also the first to remind clients that they should not forget govt solutions in business capital. Two of the best programs are the GovernmentSmall Business Loan Canada (maximum availability = $ 1,000,000.00) as well as the SR&ED program which allows business owners to recapture R&D capital costs. Sred credits can also be financed once they are filed.

Those latter two finance alternatives are often very well suited to business start up loans. We should not forget that asset finance, often called ‘ ABL ‘ by those Bay Street guys, can even be used as a loan to buy a business.

If you’re looking to get the right balance of liquidity and risk coupled with the flexibility to grow your business seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor with a track record of business finance success who can assist you with your funding needs.

Nutrition is described as the materials necessary (in the form of food) to support life. There is a belief, we as humans need more counselling on nutrition. This belief comes from the rising statistics of obesity, diabetes and our aging population. But informing these groups of the nutritional benefits of certain food types is not going to change the way nutrition is viewed. We must look past counselling and explorer different avenues of why and how we can all benefit from nutrition basics.According to Dr. Lynn McIntyre, Professor at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, low income, single women, sacrifice their own nutritional needs for the benefit of their children. Other studies also show that low income families in general, sacrifice their nutritional needs because of the cost of foods at grocery stores. Somehow, low income families are slowly associating fast food as an affordable way to feed their families. To correct this, we must change the view that nutritional food is expensive food. By showing families what types of inexpensive foods can offer the most nutrition will begin to change that view point. But how do we communicate this critical information?Interesting enough, there are a few ways that we can communicate our message that nutritional health is important. The first is through using “Duplication”. Duplication is the act of seeing and replicating what we have seen. Creating a “community” vegetable garden and selecting affordable, easy growing vegetables and providing basic recipes that use these vegetables would begin encouraging basic nutritional counselling without saying a word. By participating in these community gardens, people will begin duplicating this behaviour in their own family gardens. Providing recipes with seeds and instructions on how to grow these vegetables would certainly be one way to communicate this important message. It can also serve as an advertising tool to other sources of information such as websites and blogs.We know that parents will sacrifice their own nutritional needs for the sake of their children, but why? A high percentage is due to their limited income. Publishing blogs and twittering about the deals at grocery stores and markets to get the most affordable and nutritional food would certainly be a benefit. Providing families a list of places to go where nutritional foods are inexpensive would also help send the message. Even daily blogs on local market specials would help. Publishing these blogs in community forums setup by the YMCA or health forums or even health focused social medias like P90X on Facebook would help communicate this message.Recently, friends came over who seemed to be lost when it came to cooking. Providing some basics information on meats, fruits and vegetables can be a bit dry, but when mixed into a cooking lesson, nutritional counselling turned into a fun filled, memorable event. Whether the cooking course is provided in your house or in the house of others, the message can still be the same. Creating and showing the elderly in their own homes how to cook healthy and what nutritional foods to pick up would be a great benefit. Perhaps providing oversized, large text recipes would also be a great idea to promote nutritional eating without getting into why. The only reason is because it tastes good.With easy to read recipes, recipes and seeds delivered to communities to help market your blogs, blogs that provide tips and local deals at grocery stores and markets and marketing these blogs to all types of community forums and social media, the important message of nutrition and its benefits can be successfully communicate to all.

Will the pharmacy business experience declining profits over the next few years, and if this happens will the local community pharmacy be able to stay in business?Does it seem that business profits for pharmacy owners are being attacked from every angle? Have you read the articles detailing these points:• Reimbursements for diabetic testing supplies are being reduced.• For patients who have recurring monthly prescriptions the government is nudging the public to purchase by mail-order instead of visiting their local pharmacy.• The multipliers used to calculate reimbursements for Medicaid are expected to be lower than the pharmacy owner’s actual costs.• Dispensing fees regulated by many state agencies are being reduced.• The average wholesale price (AWP) paid to drug stores is being trimmed.The federal government’s Health and Human Services (HHS) negotiates pharmacy reimbursement rates for prescription drugs plans. Many states may take longer to provide the reimbursements. Other federal and state legislation may affect both the profits and the viability of staying in business. There are also issues regarding higher personal taxes and higher capital gain taxes that need to be considered.Over a number of years many independent drug stores have already been sold. These owners are gone and they are not looking to buyout their local competition. There are fewer young people willing to take the chance of business ownership. Some pharmacies have been closed due to the fact there was not a qualified buyer in the area. National and regional drug store chains have been sold during the past few years. The consolidation of pharmacy industry is seen as an advantage for the buyer, but for the local community pharmacy owner the consolidation provides added uncertainty to their business.It is expected that in the coming years, if circumstances don’t change, that current pharmacy owners will receive considerably lower purchase prices than their associates did 10 years ago. With the average pharmacy owner closer to the age of 60 than 40, many of the current pharmacy owners will need to take a hard look at their retirement expectations.When ready for an exit strategy, what does a pharmacy owner do when there are fewer willing buyers? Who will pay them an adequate amount for a business they have spent a life time building?Pharmacy owners, who do not plan on exiting the pharmacy industry until a few more years, will waiting a year or two really put the most amount of money in the bank for the pharmacy owner’s retirement account? If the business is sold now, can the proceeds be injected into other investments that would offer a higher return? The pharmacy owner should have their accountant calculate some projections, and the pharmacy owner will need to personally keep a diligent eye on any new regulatory proposals. By not being on top of what is affecting the industry, a pharmacy business owner could see a serious impact to the person’s retirement plans.Pharmacy owners are small business people. Financially they have done well during their career, but most would not categorize themselves as wealthy. The pharmacy is probably the largest asset they will ever own so any consideration of selling the business at the right time should come with a great deal thought.In a normal flow of transferring a drug store to a new owner, the process typically takes about nine months. This is important for a business owner to understand. To deposit the largest sum of money into the bank for retirement the decision to sell the business cannot be a quick decision, nor should the business be put on auction block for a quick sale. When it is time to consider retirement the appropriate planning needs to take place.