Try the Avoiding Insolvency Checklist
As featured in the Financial Times, The Times, the Daily Mail, the Mirror and the Express (late 1990s)...
This will take you about ten minutes. But it could help you spot a problem before it becomes a conversation you never want to have.
Right now, in calm water, your business probably feels solid. So did many of the businesses that went under this year, a year before it happened. The only real difference is whether you look now, while there's still time to act, or later, when there isn't.
Mark originally co-created this checklist for UK business owners in the late 1990s. It began as a simple paper form and went on to feature in the Financial Times, The Times, the Daily Mail, the Mirror and the Express, with around 35,000 directors requesting a copy. Now, Mark has completely rebuilt it for 2026, drawing on more than 3,000 business cases and the very different pressures facing businesses today. Rising costs. Tighter margins. Late payments. Bad debts. Tax pressure. Harder borrowing. And sometimes the failure of another business several steps removed from your own. Some of the saddest cases Mark has seen involved good businesses, run by capable people, brought down through no fault of their own. This checklist isn’t about blame. It’s about spotting the warning signs early, before something manageable becomes much harder to fix.
One thing before you start. This checklist is written from personal experience, one captain to another. It is not legal advice, financial advice, or a regulated assessment of any kind. If anything you read here raises a serious concern, please speak to a qualified solicitor, accountant, or insolvency practitioner. They are the right people for that conversation. This is simply a plain-English prompt to help you think.
Mark Smillie has spent forty years sitting across the table from company directors, in the good years, and in the very worst ones. In 2007 his own business was knocked sideways when Northern Rock collapsed, through nothing he had done wrong. He rebuilt, and decided to spend the rest of his career making sure other directors never had to go through what he went through. He has seen how quietly trouble tends to build, and how much difference one honest conversation, had early enough, can make. He put this checklist together because he would rather you never needed the harder conversation at all. Press enquiries: mark@ringroseandco.co.uk · 07710 466166