It should go without saying that maintaining a steady, positive cash flow is critical to keeping your business afloat. After all, if you don’t have the cash, you can’t pay your bills. And, if you can’t pay your bills, you won’t be able to stay in business for long.

Remember those movies where one of the principal characters is dealing with some financial crisis and pulls out a box filled with scraps of paper receipts. Don’t do that!

As a business owner, receivables (accounts receivable or A/R) are a vital part of your business. If you are not billing or invoicing clients and subsequently, collecting those receivables in a timely fashion, your business will be unable to sustain itself.