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Focus on Key Business Essentials During COVID-19 – Securing Your Business and Protecting Your Assets

Checklist for Securing Your Business, Protecting Assets

In the face of uncertainty, successful business leaders must prioritize key business essentials and guide their organizations through this global crisis. Blythe Global Advisors has developed a checklist of 11 critical areas for financial executives to focus on now to position their organizations for a strong recovery.

 

  1. Cash management strategies
    1. Prioritize and conserve cash payments by creating a deferral strategy
  2. Finance & liquidity
    1. Re-cast cash projections
      1. Prioritize and re-cast business initiatives
      2. Assess and adjust for potential supply chain shortages and price changes
  3. Working capital management to aggressively free up cash
    1. Accelerate collection activity
    2. Strengthen credit policies and procedures
    3. Re-balance inventory levels to reflect revised forecast and demand
    4. Maximize return on limited inventory
    5. Review of key essential and non-essential vendors and payment terms
    6. Update reserves and valuation of A/R and inventory
  4. Banking relationships and debt
    1. Identify opportunities to immediately defer payments and reporting dates
    2. Renegotiate existing bank lines, terms and covenants
    3. Identify capital availability outside of traditional sources
    4. CARES Act – SBA 7(a) loan
  5. Lease obligations
    1. Accelerate collection activity
    2. Identify opportunities to immediately defer payments
    3. Renegotiate lease terms including extensions
    4. Reassess accounting for leases
  6. Going Concern
    1. Reassess accounting disclosures including going concern analysis
  7. Valuation, impairment and restructuring
    1. Review of intangible and long-lived assets for impairment
    2. Assess accounting for restructuring activities
  8. Insurance and legal
    1. Examine business interruption insurance
    2. Assess coverages to reflect changes in business
    3. Assess Force Majeure exposures
    4. Analyze new unintended risks, exposures and liabilities
    5. Update crisis recovery and business continuity plan and teams
  9. Tax advisory
    1. Reassess effective tax rates
    2. Examine new filing deadlines
    3. Understand new NOL carryback rulings
    4. Understand new valuation allowance assessment
    5. CARES Act modifies loss limitation for pass-through entities
  10. Workforce management
    1. Right size employee headcount
    2. Essential business categorization
    3. Assessing impacts of new sick leave and PTO rulings
    4. Notify employees of new retirement plan flexibility
    5. Identify technology needs and security exposure points to reflect remote workforce
    6. Reassess processes and internal controls surrounding changes in workforce functions and remote environment including fraud risk
    7. Understand impacts of CARES Act on employee base
      1. Expansion of unemployment insurance
      2. Recovery rebates to individuals
      3. Employee retention credit
      4. Deferred employer share of payroll taxes
  11. Mergers & acquisitions
    1. Reassess in-process M&A activity – accelerate or postpone
    2. Integrations – accelerate or postpone
    3. Identify opportunistic transactions
    4. Evaluate the potential to accelerate divestments

BGA is Here to Help

Blythe Global Advisors can help you evaluate these critical business areas and determine which require immediate focus. If you would like advice or assistance regarding these recommendations, please contact Marc Blythe at marc@blytheglobal.com or call 949-757-4180.