The current times of crisis, with an extent that no one could have imagined, also require various adjustments for ongoing business succession processes. Because aven if you do not belong to the most affected sectors such as hotels/hospitality/trade fairs and events/retail and wholesale, it is still advisable to focus even more on some of the things that are already important in everyday business lifen:
Day-by-day receivables management
Why is this necessary for business succession in times of the Corona crisis? Even if they are currently well employed (for example, construction industry/trade businesses, etc.) it is still advisable to know exactly on the day which outstanding receivables exist and which outstanding invoices need to be paid. In times of the Corona crisis you cannot be sure that all your receivables will be paid on time as usual. This means that you and your company can quickly run into liquidity bottlenecks.
Annual accounts
If your tax advisor has already started working on the annual financial statements and these are to be included in a company valuation to be prepared, it is advisable to prepare an “Annual Financial Statement ? Plan B? to be prepared. The extent of the crisis cannot be predicted by anyone at present.
It might make sense to adjust your 2019 annual financial statements, naturally within the legally permissible scope for valuation, so significantly that the result is not necessarily as good as possible, but that high tax payments and resulting additional advance payments are avoided for the future. This also protects liquidity. Currently there are only tax deferral possibilities but no tax relief programmes. In an ongoing sales process, the various measures should of course be discussed.
Spending control
In these uncertain times, you should organise stringent expenditure control. As a result, you should postpone expenses and investments that are not absolutely necessary. In any case, the entrepreneur should know who is allowed to make expenditures in the company and to what extent, and proactively talk to those involved here.
Human Resources Management
Here, too, it is advisable to have a precise overview of the personnel available.
- Who is currently on holiday or will be shortly?
- Who is ill?
- Who is on maternity leave?
Does it make sense to form several response teams for sensitive areas of the company? For example, in the event of an acute case of infection, you can ensure that no area of the company comes to a standstill simply because quarantine is ordered for certain employees.
Supplier check
Are you sure that all your suppliers are currently able to deliver and will be able to do so in the coming weeks? Have you stocked up on urgently needed parts in such a way that you can maintain your production process for a certain time without additional deliveries?
State aid programmes
In addition, the many In the meantime, the state has launched a number of
- Support programmes
- Immediate liquidity support
- Tax suspensions
- Special loans
- Short-time working schemes
you should know anyway and always stay up to date in consultation with the relevant advisors (tax advisor / lawyer). You never know when you might have to make use of it. Here you get an overview of the Corona aid from the federal government. You can find the individual state programmes on the pages of the respective state government.
Conclusion for business succession:
In principle, the following applies in any case, even if one’s own company is not currently directly affected by the crisis,
Securing liquidity has top priority priority?.
Even state aid is only as good as the time it takes to get it into your account.
Under these circumstances, a planned business succession can succeed even in times of crisis.
Tips for further reading:
Selling a print shop: How does it work?
Family-internal business succession continues to lose importance
