Interest Rates Hitting Small Businesses Harder – What You Can Do

ILLUSTRATION BY ALEXANDRA CITRIN-SAFADI/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By Rich Bond

The Wall Street Journal said that small to medium sized businesses are being hit particularly hard by the increase in interest rates. While large companies are rushing to borrow, small ones are holding back as funding costs rise.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-rate-increases-hit-small-businesses-the-hardest-7da7fb8e?st=4gbr7fj30ws389g&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I think there are rational steps businesses can and should take in the face of raising interest rates. Companies have options and strategies that can help reduce what they need to borrow from the banks including:

1. Extending their payment terms.
2. More aggressively collecting their receivables.
3. Managing their inventory more efficiently.  (One of my clients hired a new Controller who reduced inventories by over $1 million, while increasing their on-time order fill rate.)
4. Increasing prices.

The interest rates on lines of credit may have increased substantially, but that makes for an opportunity to look hard at your business and figure out ways to run more efficiently.