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5.) Negotiate fast payment terms with your customers. Sixty days is a long time to wait to get paid from a customer, and it is even longer if you bill them monthly (if you do, you may not get paid until 90 days after the work is done). Make sure you understand the terms that you are agreeing to with your client. Consider offering your clients a small discount for faster payment.

7.) Consider how you compensate employees. There are many alternatives to money that make a company look attractive to prospective employees. Flexible time, telecommuting, and recognition can go a long way towards making your staff happy, and they cost next to nothing, helping you conserve cash. Consider carefully, however, using time off as a perk. If you make your money by billing out employees’ time, their absence costs you not only salary but also the revenue that would have been earned had that person been working.

I've also compiled a reading list, for those of you who would like to know more:

2.) Forecasting Budgets: 25 Keys to Successful Planning, by Norman Moore and Grover Gardner

3.) The Small Business Survival Guide: How to Manage Your Cash, Profits, and Taxes, by Robert E. Fleury

Many companies fold because they are unable to manage their cash flow. They have customers but not enough cash. Many women, especially, claim financial ignorance. Don’t let this be the excuse that brings all your hard work down.

If you are not financially oriented, take a class or ask your accountant for help. You don’t have to know how to make general ledger entries or how to depreciate assets, but you have to become savvy enough to know if you will be able to pay your bills month after month and to make sure that your money is working in the most efficient way to support your business. The old adage is true: Cash is king in a growing business!