Communication is the key. If you have bills coming up, get in touch with your suppliers and ask them if you can arrange a payment plan. You'll find email templates on this topic in the QuickBooks blog. On the flip side, if you have customers who haven't yet paid, don't be afraid to give them a polite nudge - you can even set automatic reminders for QuickBooks invoices.

Depending on your situation, it could also be worthwhile offering customers a small discount for early payment. You might decide it's worth taking that small hit to keep your money inflows in a healthy state and save yourself a few sleepless nights.

This is the process of looking at possible actions you could take for your business so you get a clearer understanding of the impact these steps would have. For example, you could use scenario planning to look at the consequences of taking out a loan. You'd see the short-term positive financial boost, but also how long the repayments might increase your outgoings for.

It's simple in QuickBooks. New upgraded bank connections mean that you can import up to 2 years worth of data making it possible to do a month-by-month comparison of your financial situation.

As a business owner, you may have one main bank account for your business, but it's likely that you'll also be using credit cards, and possibly supplementary accounts too. By connecting all of your relevant bank accounts and credit cards to QuickBooks, you'll be able to see your overall balance at a glance and have a better understanding of your cash position in real time.

Tagging lets you apply customised labels to estimates, invoices, purchase orders, expenses and bills so you can track information and create reports that are meaningful to your business. Tags are completely separate from your chart of accounts, so they won’t affect your accounting at all.