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Here are some considerations to keep in mind as you evaluate the best financing options for your business—today, and in the long-run as you continue to reach for growth milestones. With less equity capital available, more entrepreneurs are turning to debt financing to meet their short- and long-term needs. Debt financing offers quick access to funds, enables you to retain equity ownership and control of your business, and alleviates the pressure for rapid growth Many startups looking for this type of “working capital” are turning to the federal stimulus programs, along with credit cards, lines of credit, and short-term loans to help them meet these short-term needs and maintain operations.

With the global economy crippled by a trifecta of the 1973 oil crisis, a major stock market crash, and an ensuing 16-month recession, Microsoft launched into the public domain in 1975. With the global workplace suddenly thrown in the deep end of learning how to function remotely, it has given companies the ideal opportunity to explore how they can run teams and make swifter decisions with less in-person contact. In Buffer’s State of Remote Work report last year, statistics showed that 99% of people wanted to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their career. If there’s anything we can learn from past recessions, and the current boom for many tech companies, it’s that startups need to learn to become more agile, run leaner, and make more strategic decisions about their marketing and direction in order to move forward.

So a company with a monthly burn rate (that’s the amount by which expenses exceed cash flow) of $20,000 and $200,000 in cash has a runway of 10 months. Rather than spend time and resources raising capital in a difficult time, you can focus your energy on value-adding activities, such as accelerating product development and investing in expanding your TAM. A provider of optimized IT management services, iOPEX turned to Lighter Capital to finance the company through a period of rapid growth without having to raise capital from a VC. Lighter Capital is creating a data analytics platform for startups that provides a view into runways and other key metrics that are critical in understanding the health of a business.

Most opt for accrual accounting, where your bookings, monthly recurring revenue, recognized revenue, deferred revenue, and cash collections are all accounted for. If you’re tracking this scenario using a cash model, your bottom line looks great and your level of customer interest is high, but there’s more to the picture. If you’re utilizing a cash accounting model now and feel that it’s working fine, that may be true, but only to a certain extent. If you’re unsure about how to begin tracking your various types of revenue or need guidance when switching away from a cash model, the team at airCFO can help.