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Business finance strategies for 2023

ended 13. January 2023

Tomorrow morning, the latest GDP data is out. Few business finance-related Qs for you on the back of this:

  • Are you seeing more businesses struggling with their cash flow or struggling to cover their overheads?
  • Are more businesses taking on more debt or other finance solutions to ride out the storm ahead? If so, which, and how easy or hard are they to get?
  • What are the main challenges your business clients are facing right now, e.g. higher (input) costs, reduced demand?
  • Do you expect to see a sharp increase in corporate insolvencies during 2023?

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Steven Mather
Lawyer & Director at Steven Mather Solicitor
We’ve seen a significant uptick in business clients needing debt recovery. In good times, a business can often overlook a £20k debt or even a £100k debt, but when the economy gets tighter, they start looking at their aged debtors and push harder for payments. Getting on top of aged debt can really help your cash flow but, as the chain upwards may be struggling with cash flow, too, it’s not necessarily easy to get paid. Sadly it’s sometimes the one who shouts loudest who gets paid first. I’m fully expecting insolvencies to increase hugely this year. We’ve already seen some big ones, like the retailer Joules. The issue with insolvency is that there’s often a whole chain of small business suppliers below who are hung out to dry with no likelihood of getting paid, which puts pressure on them to pay staff and keep the economy going.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
If you're an insolvency practitioner you're the only business that will see a bumper year in 2023. Businesses are struggling with increased costs from high inflation, higher finance costs from increasing rates and lower demand as the cost of living bites. It is a perfect storm. The cost of finance is a real problem for businesses as commercial finance is on variable rates that increase as the central bank raises rates. They are predicted to increase rates twice more before they top out in Spring. This is a cataclysmic mistake as they are inflicting untold pain on SMEs and the policy is impotent against imported inflation. The figures showing double-digit price growth aren't caused by domestic rampant demand. It's simply energy costs filtering through the system. You don't have to be the Bank governor to realise this policy is bonkers.
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Ian Hepworth
Director at Funding Solutions UK Limited
More businesses require funding as they face difficult headwinds. The good news is that business finance is still available. However, business owners may need to be a bit smarter in terms of how they source that funding. They will need to look beyond their bank and sweat the assets of the business to ensure they maximise what security is available to attract finance. Specialist business finance companies may be the best option.

Many business owners think about loans and overdrafts when they think of business finance. Many other solutions can work much better in difficult times. Facilities such as asset finance, invoice finance, stock funding and trade finance are popular at present.
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Marcus Wright
Managing Director at Bolton Business Finance
We are certainly seeing strong demand from small businesses looking for finance to support their cashflow since the start of 2023. Several clients I have spoken to recently are worried about larger bills from suppliers or upcoming recession, and as such are looking to build a cash buffer in the bank. However it's not all doom and gloom, plenty of businesses are still investing and expecting to grow this year. Plus plenty of banks and specialist business lenders are still very much open for business.