You cannot steer a company through difficulty without knowing where the money goes. A simple budget, built fast, is the map.
List income and outgoings
Write down the money coming in and, separately, everything going out, grouped into essential and non-essential. Do not aim for perfection; aim for a picture accurate enough to act on.
Find the surplus or the gap
Subtract outgoings from income. A surplus tells you what is available for debts and buffer-building; a gap tells you exactly how much you need to close through cuts, faster collections or an arrangement.
Update it as reality lands
A budget is a living tool in difficulty. Revisit it weekly against what actually happened, and adjust. An honest, updated budget beats a polished one that is out of date.
A clear budget makes every creditor conversation, including with us, far more productive.
We lend only to UK limited companies and LLPs, and the loan is to the company with no director personal guarantee. As business finance outside the consumer-credit regime, it is not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or FSCS.
See also: How to build a simple cash-flow forecast to stay ahead, Building a thirteen-week cashflow forecast, How to prioritise which bills to pay first.