Cash flow
My company is in debt: what do I do?
Stop taking on costly debt, list all you owe, prioritize taxes, wages and secured debts, negotiate in writing and fix the cause. See an accountant early.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
A company in debt is not yet a bankrupt company. There is a lot you can do between one and the other, as long as you act early and calmly. In June 2026, Serasa Experian recorded more than 9.1 million delinquent companies in the country, most of them micro and small businesses. The problem is common; what changes the outcome is the order of your decisions.
The practical path
- Stop digging. Don't take out a new, expensive loan to pay the old one. Revolving credit card balances, overdrafts and successive advances on receivables tend to speed up the fall.
- Map the debt. For each creditor: amount, interest, due date, collateral (your personal guarantee, a company asset) and how overdue. Check the Central Bank's Registrato for bank debts and your tax status with the Federal Revenue Service and the PGFN.
- Prioritize with judgment. Wages and labor charges, taxes and secured debts have more serious consequences. Essential suppliers come next, because without them the company stops. Set this order with an accountant.
- Find the cause. Price below cost? Sales dropped? Payment terms too long? Fixed costs too big for your current size? Without fixing the cause, renegotiation only pushes the problem forward.
- Cut and adjust quickly. Reduce fixed costs, sell idle inventory, renegotiate the rent, suspend whatever doesn't generate revenue. A 13-week cash flow shows how much time you have.
- Negotiate in writing. Present the creditor with a proposal you can actually keep. For federal debts, there are PGFN settlements; renegotiation programs for small businesses open at certain times (check gov.br).
- Know the legal instruments. Law 11,101/2005, reformed by Law 14,112/2020, provides for out-of-court and judicial reorganization, with a special plan for micro and small businesses (installments over up to 36 months, with interest at the Selic rate and the first installment within 180 days, under art. 71). These are serious paths, with costs and rules; assess them with a specialized lawyer before it's too late.
- Protect those who depend on you. Talk honestly with your team. And take care of yourself: if the pressure turns into despair, call CVV at 188, free and 24 hours a day.
This page is general guidance, not a legal or accounting opinion.
How Bairo went through it
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez went through the situation in which debt stopped being a number and became people. He says that, after investing in someone else's business that didn't hold, he went broke with many people depending on him. His story tells that there was a natural reaction, complaining about the partner, the system, bad luck, and that he chose another: not to complain, and to decide to learn what he didn't know.
It wasn't a quick turnaround. The next attempt also went wrong. He kept going.
The Method step
Two steps of the Seventh Attempt Method apply here: step 5, count in lifetime (how many weeks of runway you have and what your red line is), and step 7, go quiet and return to the circle (20 minutes without screens before deciding, and taking stock of what this phase is teaching).
Discover the Seventh Attempt Method