You are probably already taking action. If you haven’t yet the best time was some time in the last few weeks, the second best time is now.

Regardless of whether you are a one person business or a post audit business with 100 staff, the ill wind of the current virus and its attendant impact will change things, possibly irrevocably.

I’ve written strategy and disaster recovery plans for a lot of businesses in the last seven years, I can count on one hand the number that had a response to a global pandemic in them. We are dealing with a situation that for once is geniunely unprecedented.

As always I won’t tell anyone what to do but here are some suggestions for those who want them;

1. Refresh your cashflow forecast and test it against what you now know to be likely impacts, remote working, loss of staff through illness or isolation or impacts on family, (you will all have this to some extent).

2. Where is the bottom of the hole in terms of cash and how might you fill it? If you know you are out of cash in 16 or 24 weeks now is the time to sort this.

Rank your creditors in terms of who you want to pay first and start communicating. Whilst counter intuitive in some ways it nearly always pays dividends. You will probably get some latitude with payments of rates and VAT bills in the current crisis if the noises being made by HMG are to be believed, watch carefully for updates on these pronouncements on gov.uk.

3. Talk to your people and appraise them of your thinking, this will be easier for business owners who are used to speaking openly to their staff and contractors but if you are not in the habit of this you may have to start now.

4. Customers, clients and suppliers – keep the channels of communications open, tell them what you are planning to do and ask them. If appropriate this should happen on multiple levels between the organisations.

5. What could you do differently, are there opportunities to stop doing things that are marginal for the business?

Above all keep communicating with the three big stakeholder groups for your business, your staff and contractors, your clients and suppliers and your finance providers and advisers.

Now is the time to seek out your pot fillers not your pot drillers, spend time on the phone with the stakeholders who you find uplifting and positive and seek other counsel.

Any of my current and former clients can always access me and I will do my level best to help anyone else I can at this time, though I must prioritise clients over new advice requirements as I am sure you would understand.