Whether you’re a photographer, caterer, floral shop, decorator etc.. being an event vendor is not an easy job. Between finding new customers, managing multiple events, dealing with your own suppliers, AND keeping on top of finances, there’s barely time for anything else.
Luckily, with Delegate, many of the above issues can be solved for you. By listing your business as a vendor, Delegate can provide access to a large number of event organisers looking for vendors, help you manage your listings and give you access to multiple planning tools.
How about more mundane things like finances though? It may seem like a boring administrative task, but keeping on top of it, and making sure your business has enough cash flow to pay for all the supplies you need is crucial for an events vendor (or any business really). So you need to make sure that your customers are paying you on time, and subsequently you pay your suppliers on time.
On Delegate, when an event chooses to hire you, the organizer would be required to pay a 50% deposit on the total agreed cost and it will be transferred to you within 3 to 5 business days. This definitely helps out the uncertainty that comes with some customers, but there are still times when cash can be tight, and you have multiple jobs to provide for. So what do you do? Today we want to give you some other options to find short-term solutions.
1. Sell your invoices
If you’re too busy to chase payments from your customers, and you have a few outstanding ones that you want to collect right away, it can be as simple as finding an invoice factorer or buyer to take them off your hands and pay you cash upfront. Of course they will take a discount; because they’re taking the risk of not being paid later, but it’s worth it if you’re looking for a short-term injection of cash.
2. Making it easier for your customers to pay you
Sometimes, cash doesn’t come in because it’s not very easy for your customers to pay you. Do you only accept bank transfers? Cheques? Cash? The more convenient you make it for them to pay you, the faster it might be to get the cash in your account. So consider options like credit card, digital wallets, or even bitcoin?
3. Negotiate for payment terms from suppliers
It is possible to manage your relationship with your suppliers to pay when you have the cash flow. By knowing when you will receive revenue, you can negotiate for part payment now as a deposit and then when you are generating income from sales, another percentage can be paid.
Optimize your cash flow by matching your inflow and outflow, this way your supplier relationships are improved and you can fund further expenditure on timely and effective marketing promotions.
Be cautious here though, because failing to make payments one time erodes your supplier relationships. Late payments put financial pressure on your suppliers, and this could affect the service or product they are providing.
4. Defer cash outflow with credit (from credit cards!)
Sometimes, there simply is a lag between when you need to pay out a venue hire/supplier/other costs, and when you receive any funds from your income. This can happen even to the best event organizers. That’s why there are other options out there, like short term credit to bridge the gap between investing upfront and running a successful event.
This is where Reap can help, allowing you to use credit already available to you in your credit card. Even though many suppliers may not accept credit card, there are still options for you pay with credit card first, and then pay cash once the credit card statement is due up to 60 days after. Reap would allow you to make these payments on credit (for up to 60 days) to anyone for your event; venue booking, suppliers, employees.
Liked this article? Check out these too:
