A helpful bank? Blimey!

When the phone rang at 8.45am I looked at the caller ID with a feeling of impending doom that was justified when I saw it was an 0845 number. Calls before 9am at home from 0845 numbers never mean anything good and it’s usually a company I owe money to that is baying for my blood.

This morning it was the bank. Specifically the collections department because my small business loan payment bounced this month. Surprisingly though, the guy on the end of the telephone was actually more than helpful! He listened when I explained about the middle man bollocks I’ve had to deal with recently including the phone and internet issues in the workshop, the merchant account problems and the reasons for the lack of cash flow. I told him that I have customer card payments to process, but that until it’s all in place (fingers crossed NetBanx sort it out today!!) there is nothing I can do to get funds into the account.

He said that they realised it was pointless to keep re-presenting for the loan payment when the account is over the overdraft and until I have the payment processor set up an in place. From that point I will KNOW that as long as I have orders coming in, I will be receiving their payment within SEVEN days instead of the 28 days from WorldPay and a much better idea of my weekly numbers and where I am at.

It was just amazing to speak to somebody with the authority to help me and offer the best solutions for my business’s current problems. It’s only a short term fix that we have arranged today – basically I’ve got a couple of months off from paying the loan payment which will be added to the end of it to give me some breathing space. It’s £440 that I don’t need to find by 8th September … and instead I won’t have to pay anything except the regular £220 in October so that’s one pressure off my back anyway!

I should never have taken out the loan in the first place. Bad decision… but I did what I thought was best at the time. Unfortunately it was probably the one single thing that caused me to suffer further down the line.

Still, after waking up early this morning (well ok early for school holidays when I don’t have to *technically* be anywhere by 9am) and the feeling of anxiety I had from the moment I opened my eyes … I’m feeling a little more chilled. I’ve got a busy day ahead, but Nathan is watching the end of a film so I’m just chilling for a little bit this morning before I launch into my numbers and then head into work to send some boxes out!

Middle Man Bollocks

I could run my business a LOT easier if it wasn’t for the middle men I have no choice but to use.

My phone and Internet went down at work recently. What could I do? Absolutely nothing!! We were out of touch with the outside world for several days and had to use my mobile number to call their “free phone” number … which isn’t actually free if you don’t have a frigging working phone line … and then rely on the person on the end of the phone to actually do what they had promised to do… which … 99% of the time (in my experience) they don’t!

I used to have quite a senior role in customer services for a utility company before I started my own business. I know what these people are thinking when they get a really stressy pissy person on the phone, so I always try to be as polite as possible because it isn’t THEIR fault that they work for a company who doesn’t manage to actually provide the service you are paying them for (well ok it is – they could get another job! LOL). Trouble is, when you are polite and nice … you are also easy to ignore. On the flip side if you then GET pissy with them … ooopsie look you got cut off.

I have been trying to set up a new merchant account for the last 4 weeks. It was supposed to take a week. Meanwhile customers are placing orders but I actually have no way of processing their credit cards until the new merchant account is in place. The whole idea of switching merchant is for cash flow reasons … ie I have NO CASH FLOW right now. My old merchant account took 28 days to pay the funds into my account … the new company will be just 7 days so it will make an enormous difference to the company accounts, but damnit it is taking TOO long to set up. I have been promised faithfully that I am on the “integration list” for Monday morning … I’d better be or I’m gonna be firing rockets under people’s asses!

How can I run a business without any cash flow whatsoever? I still have invoices coming in that I need to pay and no way of paying them until I can process my own incoming payments! Thing is … I’ve been a huge believer of “if you want it done properly, do it yourself” for so long … and that combined with my serious lack of patience … well GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR is the result when it’s something I can’t do without a middle man!