7 financial risks in business that could be worth millions
There are always risks in business, and there are many of them. Some cannot be influenced, for example, if the summer in the region turned out to be dry, agribusiness will not be able to do anything about it: the peas will dry out, the rye will not be born. But there are risks that can and should be influenced – these are financial ones.
Financial risks are all situations in which a company can lose money for various reasons: due to the carelessness of the owner, the dishonesty of the supplier, buyer, or errors in the currency contract.
In this article, seven financial risks that Russian companies most often face according to the experience of our financial directors. Each risk can be minimized, and some can be predicted and eliminated altogether. We’ll tell you how to do it.
Risk 1. Losing money due to an unreliable supplier or client
An entrepreneur risks losing money when working with unreliable suppliers or clients. Such a risk arises, for example, if suppliers delay the shipment of goods or a customer cannot pay their bills due to bankruptcy.
The risk of losing money due to unreliable suppliers or customers is called counterparty credit risk and can threaten a company from two sides.
Supplier risk
Buyer side
Misha makes bricks in Saratov, and he urgently needed lime from the Sands and Clays company. The companies entered into a contract for a year of supplies. Misha paid half the amount, but the manager stopped answering calls after the second shipment. Then it turned out that Sands and Clays was bankrupt, and Misha would not be able to return the advance payment or receive lime. All because the supplier is unreliable.
Misha sells a large batch of bricks, but the client asks for a month delay. Misha agrees, but after a month there is no money. The order is large – it took him three weeks to manufacture, and Misha spent a lot of money to make a ton of bricks. Now he will have to take out a loan to pay salaries and work while litigation continues. The company lost money due to an unreliable buyer.
Visually, credit risk can be represented as follows:
How to avoid. To avoid credit risk of counterparties, it is necessary to check suppliers and customers for reliability. You can do this using services.
Free Services
What is checked
“Transparent business” from the Federal Tax Service
Checks the counterparty in six registers, including the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and the register of disqualified persons. Additionally checks the owner and legal address.
Unified State Register of Legal Entities / EGRIP
Date of registration of the company, type of activity, name of the founder and address. If the registration address is massive, there is a risk that the counterparty is a one-day company.
Bank information system
Whether the accounts of the counterparty are blocked.
FSSP website
Does the supplier have debts that are transferred to the bailiffs.
Arbitration files
Whether the supplier is suing someone. If so, it shows how much the claim is for, and what happened to them there.
Paid services
What is checked
Contour Focus
All information about the counterparty and automatically collects it in reports. Access for one day costs 1300 ₽, for a year – 61 500 ₽.
sbis
The financial condition of the supplier, the value of the business and its owner. You can check company details, addresses and phone numbers. Free access for 8 days, then you need to create an account for 500 ₽. The cheapest tariff is 6000 ₽ for a year.
Paid services collect information from more open sources. For example, Sbis collects data on companies and owners from six sources: tax, statistics, the Central Bank, Rospatent, the Supreme Court and the Treasury. “Contour. Focus” uses twenty-nine sources. And the test results look like this:
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Checking the company through Kontur.Focus: the service says that there is a financial risk, and it won’t get better in the next six months
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Here you can also see how many employees the company has, whether there are court cases, violations of inspections, and so on.
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At the end – conclusions. In our example, the service says that the financial risks are low.
If a company has been working with a supplier or buyer for a hundred years, this is no reason to stop checking. Especially if the counterparty uses deferred payments. An audit should be carried out at least once a quarter, then it will be possible to notice problems in time and stop cooperation, for example, if the counterparty starts to go bankrupt, lawsuits will appear in the results of the audit.
Risk 2. Get a fine from the bank for currency errors
A company can lose money if it sells or buys goods abroad. There are two risks here: getting a fine from the bank for violating currency laws and getting burned out on the exchange rate – both are called currency financial risks. This section is about the first.
The first version of currency risk is the case when money can be lost due to inattention. For example, if you transfer yuan to a supplier from China not at the time specified in the contract.
The fact is that the bank monitors all foreign exchange transactions. He conducts currency control, registers transactions and monitors the
