The Cashflow Rollercoaster (And How to Get Off)

SME owners have a lot to think about. This ain’t corporate. You’re in the chair for everything. Let’s explore that

When your bank balance needs a seatbelt

If you’ve ever checked your bank balance on a Friday afternoon with one eye closed, you’re not alone. If you’ve ever made payroll by sheer force of will and a hastily chased invoice, welcome to the club. If you’ve ever sat across from a bank manager who loved your business but couldn’t get it past the algorithm, you already know that cashflow isn’t just a line item. It’s the oxygen your business breathes.

For most SME owners in New Zealand, the money side of business isn’t complicated because they’re bad at numbers. It’s complicated because there are too many moving parts, too many external forces, and not nearly enough margin for error. You can be good at what you do, deliver real value to customers, build something people want – and still find yourself lying awake wondering how you’ll cover next week’s wages.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s the reality of running a small business in an economy that wasn’t designed with you in mind.

The Reality

Let’s name what’s actually happening out there.

The cashflow rollercoaster is real. Feast one month, famine the next. You’re not running a business so much as hanging on while revenue lurches between drought and deluge. A good month lulls you into thinking you’ve turned a corner. Then the next month reminds you that you haven’t. Planning feels pointless when you can’t see past next week’s bills. Long-term thinking becomes a luxury you can’t afford.

Late payers are everyone’s favourite villain. You’ve done the work, sent the invoice, and now you’re financing someone else’s business while yours waits. The 20th of the month becomes the 20th of the following month, then the month after that. You’re left choosing between awkward phone calls and quiet resentment. Meanwhile, your own suppliers want paying on time, and they’re far less forgiving than you’ve learned to be.

The bank says no. Not because your business is bad, but because it doesn’t fit the formula. Great trading history, loyal customers, solid pipeline – none of it matters when the credit model wants three years of pristine accounts and a property to secure against. You leave the meeting wondering if they saw the same business you did. The relationship manager was sympathetic. The algorithm wasn’t. You’re left to find another way, or do without.

Interest rate creep doesn’t announce itself. It just chips away, month after month, until you realise you’re paying significantly more for the same facility you had two years ago. You didn’t sign up for this rate. It just happened, while you were busy running the business. Death by a thousand basis points, and nobody sent a warning.

Skinny margins mean you’re working hard so everyone else gets rich. Suppliers get paid. Staff get paid. The landlord gets paid. The taxman gets paid. ACC gets paid. You get what’s left, which some months isn’t much at all. You look at the revenue number and wonder where it all went. The answer is: everywhere except your pocket.

Pricing nerves keep you discounting yourself out of a future. You’re terrified of losing the work, so you shave the quote, absorb the extras, throw in something free to sweeten the deal. You tell yourself it’s about winning the customer, building the relationship, playing the long game. But the long game never seems to arrive. Meanwhile, your competitors charge more and seem to sleep fine. You wonder what they know that you don’t.

Hidden cost-to-serve is profit leaking in plain sight. That difficult customer who calls constantly with questions and changes and complaints. The job that always needs rework because the brief was vague or the expectations shifted. The account that looked good on paper but eats hours you never bill for. You know it’s happening. You can feel it. You just haven’t stopped long enough to measure it, because measuring it would mean facing it.

Then there’s the tax office. GST, PAYE, provisional tax, ACC levies, FBT if you’re unlucky enough to provide any perks. A mountain of compliance that doesn’t generate a cent of revenue but demands your time, your attention, and occasionally your sanity. You’ve become an unpaid collector for the IRD, processing their paperwork on top of your own. Miss a deadline and they’ll let you know. Get it right and nobody says a word. The paperwork never stops, and it never gets easier.

What’s Actually Going On

Here’s what we’ve learned from sitting with business owners across dozens of industries. The cashflow problem is rarely just a cashflow problem.

More often, it’s a visibility problem. You’re making decisions based on your bank balance today, not your cash position in six weeks. You know money is coming in and going out, but you don’t have a clear picture of the timing. A big payment lands and you feel flush. A week later you’re scrambling again. You’re reacting to shortfalls instead of anticipating them. The business is running you instead of the other way around. Without visibility, every month is a surprise – and not usually a good one.

Sometimes it’s a pricing problem wearing a cashflow disguise. If your margins are thin, no amount of invoice chasing will fix the underlying equation. You can’t collect your way to profitability if the work isn’t priced to be profitable in the first place. Every job you win at the wrong price digs the hole a little deeper. You’re busy, you’re working hard, but the numbers don’t add up – because the numbers were wrong from the start.

Often it’s a concentration problem. Too much revenue from too few customers. Too much reliance on one product line, one supplier, one sector. When things are good, concentration feels like efficiency. You’ve found what works and you’re doubling down. But when things shift – when that key customer leaves, when that supplier raises prices, when that sector softens – concentration becomes exposure. One change and the whole picture shifts.

Frequently, it’s a boundaries problem. The line between the business’s money and your household’s expectations has gotten blurry. The business funds a lifestyle it can’t quite afford. Or it starves itself to cover drawings that feel necessary but aren’t sustainable. There’s no clear picture of what the business needs to retain, what it can afford to distribute, and what’s being taken out of hope rather than health. The two bank accounts have merged in your mind, and neither is being managed properly.

A Way Forward

None of this is unfixable. But it does require a shift from surviving to steering.

Start with visibility. A rolling 13-week cashflow forecast isn’t complicated, but it changes everything. You map out what’s coming in and what’s going out, week by week, for the next quarter. You update it weekly. It takes an hour, maybe less. But now you can see the dip before you’re in it. You can chase invoices with time to spare instead of panic. You can delay discretionary spending before it becomes a problem. You can have honest conversations with the bank while you still have options, instead of begging for help when you’re already in trouble. Visibility doesn’t solve everything. But it turns surprises into choices.

Revisit your pricing with clear eyes. Not what the market will bear. Not what your competitors charge. What the work actually costs to deliver – including your time, your expertise, your risk, and a margin that lets you build something sustainable. Underpricing isn’t generosity. It’s slow-motion failure. Every time you discount to win work, you’re training your customers to expect it and your team to accept it. Price for what the work is worth. Let the customers who can’t afford it find someone else.

Know your true cost-to-serve. Some customers are worth less than they appear. They take more time, demand more attention, pay more slowly, complain more loudly. Some products eat more margin than they deliver. Until you measure it, you’re guessing – and guessing is expensive. Track where your time actually goes. Look at profitability by customer, by job, by product. What you find might surprise you. It might also set you free.

Draw the line. Decide what the business can sustainably support and what it can’t. What level of drawings makes sense given actual performance, not hoped-for performance? What buffer does the business need to hold? What’s the trigger point where you stop taking money out and start leaving it in? Clarity here isn’t harsh. It’s kind. To you, to your family, and to the business itself. A business that’s always being drained can never get healthy.

Where to From Here

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not behind. You’re in good company. These are the challenges that come with building something real, in an economy that doesn’t make it easy.

At RegenerationHQ, we work with business owners who are ready to move from reacting to leading. Not with quick fixes or magic formulas, but with clear thinking, practical tools, and the calm that comes from knowing where you stand. If you’d value a thinking partner to work through what’s next, we should talk.