August is slow. December is erratic. January is hard to get going. Any manager knows this about their own company — and yet most live through those months as if they were a surprise.
The difference between a company that gets through seasonality calmly and one that goes into stress every year is rarely revenue volume. It is whether the pattern is written down and planned for.
Finding the pattern
Two years of history is enough. On a simple sheet, by month: revenue billed, actual receipts, and total payments including salaries and tax obligations.
What usually turns up is more interesting than expected. Many companies discover their weakest month for cash is not their weakest month for sales — it's the month after, or the one after that, because the effect arrives with the collection lag. Planning off revenue billed instead of cash received is a common, expensive mistake.
The calendar of fixed commitments
Overlaying the sales pattern with the outflows that don't move:
- Holiday bonus, typically in June.
- Christmas bonus, in November or December.
- VAT returns, depending on the regime.
- Corporate tax and annual obligations, with the Modelo 22 return by 31 May and the IES filing by 15 July.
- Annual insurance and licences, which often cluster in the same month by historical accident.
The overlay usually reveals two or three months a year where everything coincides. Those are the ones that need preparing in advance, not managing when they hit.
What to do with months of lead time
- Spread out what can be spread. Insurance and licence renewals rarely have to fall in the same month. Moving renewal dates costs nothing and permanently smooths out a spike.
- Bring forward legitimate invoicing. Not inventing invoicing: issuing on time what has already been delivered, with particular care in the months leading up to the peaks.
- Negotiate seasonal terms with suppliers. Many accept different terms in specific months, when asked in advance.
- Have a credit line arranged before you need it. Negotiated in a calm month, it costs less, as explained in the article on preparing a loan application.
The mistake that makes everything worse
Cutting spending in the hard month. When the squeeze hits, the instinctive reaction is to hold payments — which shifts the problem to the following month, made worse, and damages the supplier relationship right when it's most needed.
Seasonality you saw coming is solved with planning. Seasonality you didn't is solved with expensive improvisation.