There are five quite different reasons a business runs short of cash, and each one has a different fix. Applying the wrong fix makes things worse, usually expensively. Borrowing to cover a pricing problem buys six months and deepens the hole by the interest. Chasing sales to cover a collections problem adds more unpaid invoices to the pile.

So this step is a diagnosis before it is a plan. Half an hour spent working out which of the five it actually is tends to be the highest return half hour available to an owner under pressure, and it is the one most often skipped because the pressure makes everything feel urgent.

Have these to hand, because the diagnosis is arithmetic and each number rules something in or out:

• Revenue for the last twelve months
• Total currently owed to you by customers, and how much of it is past its due date
• Your gross margin percentage
• Total loan, lease and card payments per month
• Your operating profit per month
• How long it takes from winning work to being paid for it