Understand the whole picture.
Financial difficulty rarely involves one problem. Cash, HMRC, creditors, employees, directors, Personal Guarantees, stock, contracts and company assets can all become interconnected very quickly.
Liquidation Ready brings those issues together into one structured review.
Financial Position
What does the company actually owe?
We help establish a clear picture of:
- Bank balances and cash requirements
- Secured and unsecured borrowing
- HMRC liabilities — PAYE, VAT and Corporation Tax
- Trade creditors and landlords
- HP and leasing obligations
- Employee liabilities and unpaid expenses
- Customer deposits and contingent liabilities
Assets
What does the company own?
We identify and review:
- Cash and debtors
- Stock, plant and machinery
- Vehicles and equipment
- Intellectual property, websites and domains
- Deposits and investments
- Work in progress
- Claims against third parties and other realisable assets
The objective is to understand what exists, who owns it and what may have value.
Personal Guarantees
Company debt can sometimes become personal.
Many directors sign Personal Guarantees when obtaining:
- Business loans and asset finance
- Property leases
- Supplier credit and credit cards
- Invoice finance and other borrowing
We identify the guarantees, obtain the underlying documentation and establish the amounts potentially involved. Where the validity, enforceability or scope of a guarantee requires legal advice, this is referred to an appropriate professional adviser.
Directors' Loan Accounts
Understand what has moved between you and the company.
Director loan accounts can become particularly important when a company enters financial difficulty. We review:
- Amounts owed by directors
- Amounts owed to directors
- Historic withdrawals and repayments
- Expenses, dividends and salary
- Supporting accounting records
Where specialist accounting, tax or insolvency advice is required, this is identified before further action is taken.
Recent Transactions
Some transactions deserve a second look.
We review significant recent transactions including:
- Payments to creditors and directors
- Repayment of director loans
- Asset sales and transfers
- Connected-party transactions
- Unusual payments and dividends
- Changes in remuneration
- Security granted to lenders and significant new borrowing
The purpose is not to retrospectively alter what happened. It is to establish what happened, why it happened and what supporting records exist.
Trading and Wind-Down
Continue, reduce or stop?
One of the most important questions can be whether the company should continue trading. Liquidation Ready can help directors assemble the commercial and financial information needed to discuss this properly with the company's accountant, solicitor or Insolvency Practitioner.
Where insolvency may already exist, specialist insolvency advice should be obtained promptly before directors make material decisions.
Documentation
Decisions are easier to explain when there is a record of why they were made.
We help organise:
- Management accounts and forecasts
- Cashflow information
- Creditor and debtor lists
- Bank and tax information
- Board decisions and important correspondence
- Contracts, loan agreements and Personal Guarantees
- Asset and employee information
- Relevant professional advice