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The recession reaches Canada:
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| CREDIT MANAGEMENT | Sample article |
More than ever, the ability to become an adept negotiator is a critical skill. Whether you require negotiation skills to assist in your discussions with customers or need to negotiate with internal customers, this is a process that can be learned. Poor negotiation skills result in loss of business, poor working relations and less than favourable deals with customers, suppliers and bosses.
By following the 18 rules outlined here – and practicing, practicing, practicing – you can perfect your skills at negotiating.
1. Know your boundaries. Talk with your boss and supervisors about your limits of authority. Even something as simple as a payment plan with a customer should be documented. Aside from this being a good tactic, it is helpful in avoiding problems if the negotiation does not turn out well.
2. Remember, the line between “yes” and “no’ is often very thin. Everything is negotiable. Don’t narrow a negotiation down to just one issue. Develop as many issues or negotiable deal points as you can and then juggle in additional deal points if you and the other party lock onto one issue.
3. Prepare in advance. Information and knowledge is power. Obtain as much information as possible beforehand to make sure you understand the value of what you are negotiating. Try not to “wing it”. Very few successful negotiations begin when the counterparts arrive at the table.
4. Learn to ask questions. Clarify information you do not understand. Paraphrasing is an easily developed skill. Open-ended questions require the other side to think of an answer rather than a “yes” or “no”…
| Collector’s corner | Sample article |
Our society has many scorecards. In sports, we have many, from goals against averages in hockey and batting averages in baseball, to how well we’re doing at work with our annual performance review.
Well-developed and understood measurements help:
Many of the most common measurements in credit and finance are historical measures, measuring things that have already happened. Fewer measurements use targets in the future. That’s not going to change but we’ll discuss that another week.
The most common measurement is Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). This metric is an indicator showing both the age, in terms of days, of a company's accounts receivable and the average time it takes to turn the receivables into cash. DSO can be compared to industry and company averages, as well as company selling terms (e.g., Net 30) for determination of tolerances by the company. There are several methods of calculating DSO.
Regular DSO measures the time it takes to collect your receivables. It provides some (but not complete) understanding of the company's internal collection efficiencies. Three financial numbers are used for calculation…
| CREDIT MANAGER’S CORNER | Sample article |
The attached “credit application form” is fictitious but all of the entries in the credit application represent typical false statements we see in the third party collection profession. There are many “red flags” which should bring this application under closer scrutiny or cause you to deny credit. How many did you spot?
It may not be well known in Ontario but unless it is a numbered Quebec Company, a Quebec corporation's name must end with one of the following: compagnie, corporation, Inc. or Ltée. In Ontario, a corporation must have a name that ends with Inc., Incorporated, Corp., Corporation, Limited or Ltd. unless it is a partnership or sole proprietorship or charity.
Why is this company, located in Kingston, incorporated in Quebec instead of Ontario? Why is there no indication that this company was extra-provincially registered or federally incorporated?
Note: Sometimes individuals buy or form “shells”. These are dormant, non-existent corporations simply created or bought for the purpose of adding legitimacy to the business. Corporations that were incorporated 25 years ago or more but were made dormant recently are especially attractive. In one case, we found the original principal of a corporation who indicated that he sold his dormant corporation to an unknown individual several years ago for $500.. Unfortunately for the seller of the shell, the purchaser simply paid up the corporation fees to activate the corporation but never bothered to change the names of the principals. The seller then had to deal with numerous calls from bill collectors, private investigators and fraud detectives for several years and had to answer why he was the principal of a corporation that was performing frauds all across the country.
| CREDIT FEATURE STORY | Sample article |
The horrific propane-business explosion in Toronto and a riot in North Montreal on August 10, have an interesting back story. Several business owners admitted they had no insurance. This leads to obvious immediate failure. All business owners know they need fire and liability insurance. Fires and other disasters can completely destroy a business. There are two areas of concern:
One Toronto broker recently reported that over half of his business clients were overdue in their payments (and specifically mentioned restaurants and bars as being the worst offenders).
A landlord typically requires production of an insurance policy at the signing of the lease but may or may not ever check again during the course of the lease. A bank or large secured creditor may do the same.
Examples of insurance legal issues…
| COLLECTOR’S CORNER | Sample article |
Times are changing. Concerns about bad debt continue at low levels, while cash inflows and revenues take over as the major concern. Credit reporting/collection agencies, credit groups and training seminars sell hard on avoiding bad debts but don’t seem to grasp the real problems. What possible use is a credit report that could be up to 15 months old or an alert service that tells subscribers when a company goes bankrupt 30 days after it happens?
In all but a small percentage of professionally-run credit departments, the credit function has turned into a collection and clean-up function. Faced with a lack of credit information in many industries (particularly obtaining financial information), cash management practices, the paucity of banking information, the need to gain sales, the power of the sales department and even to a degree, society's acceptance of failure, many companies continue to pay lip service to performing adequate credit analysis.
“No, I don't need any identification from you - you have an honest face”. Most credit people would laugh and shake their heads if they heard this. Yet, this is precisely what happens too often.
In the absence of true credit analysis, the thrust of efforts turn to collection activities and reducing payment cycle-times.
Regardless of the strength or weakness of how credit facilities are provided, collection activities will be necessary at times. It is the "futurity" aspect of credit that causes this dilemma. Circumstances change between the promise to pay (the sale) and the payment due date. Fraud is rarely on the mind of a customer who have an open account with you. Sickness, unemployment, bullying customers, labour problems, poor billing and weak collection practices, the lender pulling in the line of credit, even poor weather are more often the real cause of slow payment.
Even financially strong customers can have problems from time to time - staffing, computer problems to name several. For the collector, the important thing is to determine whether the problem is short or long-term, a legitimate problem or just an excuse.
Additionally, there is the spreading practice among many companies today to withhold payment and simply wait until their creditors call. Often, these “free days” add up to thousands of dollars in interest and opportunity costs.
| CREDIT MANAGER’S CORNER | Sample article |
There are 654 collection agencies listed in the yellow pages 411.ca. Along with tens of thousands of lawyers across Canada, there is no lack of choice when it comes to dealing with serious collection problems. Some jurisdictions also allow paralegals but we will include them with collection agencies for the purpose of the article.
When selecting a third party, the credit manager has a wide selection and many choices. Unfortunately, many companies fail to properly assess and measure their third parties and may use a third party based on the selling skills of the agency's sales staff or someone knows a lawyer, rather than whether the offering is the best one for the job.
In a previous article, we described that third-party collection agencies often work on commission and that individual collectors are often paid a low base wage plus commissions based on their personal performance.
There is nothing that a collection agency can do that a competent credit department cannot also do. If used properly and within the confines of the direction and credit policies of the company, collection agencies can be an effective arm of the credit department. If seen as a dumping ground for 180+ day old accounts that have been gathering dust, don’t expect too much. As one old collection manager agency once stated, “We are in the collection business, not the resurrection business!”
A collection agency can be effective during busy times for your own staff or during the high season. But, they must have well-trained staff and not all do.
An agency can save time, be more efficient and get the job done, particularly if the credit department is under-staffed as so many are. Given a choice of collecting an 180 day old account or spending time “training” the new customer, most would prefer the latter.
Another good reason for their use is more intangible. The staff of a collection agency is paid for results. No collection - no commissions. Because collections are their business, the staff has to be “up” for the collection call. Unlike the credit person within an organization, collecting is not part-time work. And, presumably, there has been a good deal of work done on the delinquent account before being placed with the collection agency.
It is important to determine your specific needs. Some of the areas to be thought about and discussed during the selection of the collection agency…
| CREDIT MANAGEMENT | Sample article |
With many department heads beginning to think about 2009 budgets, some thought to improving performance and productivity from the finance department staff is worthwhile.
Curiously, incentive and bonus plans for credit and collection have never caught on as they have in other departments in an organization. Informal surveys indicate less than 20% of companies have a plan in effect. (It is important to distinguish between bonus plans for performance and profit-sharing plans which reward everyone). Other departments, aside from the most common, the sales department, have bonuses for productivity, whether it be in data input and processing or stock-picking outputs. Why not institute a plan that rewards measurable performance improvements? In fact, a properly-designed program may not cost the organization at all, if rewards are based on cash inflow improvements. It is elementary in credit, as in sales, that improved and measurable performance results in calculable business improvement. Since the credit function is inter-related with sales in that the ultimate objectives: 1. optimization of profits; 2. maximizing sales volumes; and 3. servicing the customers, are the same, it follows that incentives are as important to credit and collection personnel as they are to sales.
As Frederick Taylor, an early 20th century management guru and creator of time and motion studies once said, "You cannot get a man to do an extraordinary day's work for an ordinary day's pay." This is what incentives are supposed to do.
Almost anytime effort and inclination (motivation) can affect business or departmental results, rewards for that performance may play an important part in maintaining motivation and building employee loyalty. In credit, faster cash inflows mean lower risks, lower costs and in many cases, higher profits. Together with “praise-for-performance” motivation techniques and job enrichment/job enlargement techniques, pay-for-performance programs can provide strong productivity results.
| CREDIT MANAGER’S CORNER | Sample article |
The strength of the economy in these early years of the 2000’s have unfortunately meant that credit facilities have been provided to many companies without any traditional credit analysis other than payment information and “fuzzy” banking information. For many companies who rarely, if ever, do not approve credit applications or review existing customers, the downturning economy in some lines of business may provide a rude awakening and increased interest in the art of credit granting.
What is the purpose of credit analysis? It is simply to try to predict the likelihood that a customer or prospective customer will pay its bills in a tolerable manner or go out of business without paying all creditors in full over the next 12 month period. Ultimately, the goal of the creation of a customer is to assess the credit risk associated with selling to a customer in order to optimize sales and profits for the business.
Once the prospective credit applicant has requested credit facilities, usually through a credit application, the credit analyst has the daunting job of examining the creditworthiness of the applicant.
All businesses struggle with the proper criteria to evaluate a credit application. Often, the Five C's of Credit as a credit decision guide. The importance of each element will vary from customer to customer and are not always weighted equally. The important aspect is that lack of complete information is a given in the credit analysis process. Add to that the fact that all credit information is historical – it has already happened - it is easy to see why sales sees the sale as black and white, the credit decision is always varying shades of grey. No one is too good or too bad.
This article stresses the analysis areas, the sources of the information are the subject of another upcoming article. Some of the credit areas that need to be assessed, known as the 5 C’s of Credit
Character determines willingness to pay and refers to two areas of credit analysis. The character of the business and its legal implications and secondly, the reputation of management along with their history and business experience. In the first instance, the character of the business and its legal organization mean different things to different classes of creditors. A proprietorship or partnership legal organization provides for joint and several liability for all classes of creditors. The owners have no legal protection from creditors for their obligations. In other special types of partnerships, LP (limited partnerships, LLP (limited liability partnerships), certain classes of owners will be limited in their liability buy general partners will be liable.
| CREDIT MANAGER’S CORNER | Sample article |
Many companies have recently changed their credit policies and now require a credit application for credit accounts over a thousand dollars. Until recently, most companies would extend up to credit up to five thousand dollars. without a credit application. As accounts receivable managers and credit professionals can attest, this started to become a problem as new contractors would show up, rack up the account to the limit or more and disappear. Not all losses would qualify as fraud, many of the losses could be caused by extending credit to individuals (sole proprietors) or companies that really had no business obtaining credit because their “financial bench” was so shallow that if they were not paid by one or two customers they could not pay their accounts according to terms. Credit managers in response would then place the account on hold, the contractor would not be able to obtain product and equipment to sell to their customers and would be forced to close their business. In the construction industry, as in most industries, if you are strictly on C.O.D./certified cheque with most of your suppliers and do not have adequate bank funding, your prospects for growth and success are extremely limited.
While a good credit application is a good first step to avoiding fraud or selling to a customer that will not likely be able to meet your credit terms on a consistent basis, how you investigate and analyze the information in the application will help you weed out the bad ones.
| CREDIT INTERNET | Sample article |
As you may have discovered by now, it is possible to find information about companies in premium services that you’ll not find on the web.
Conversely, you can unearth information on the web that you’d never locate in premium services. Ideally, the most comprehensive search on a company (or any topic for that matter) includes alerts (free and premium), a search on the public web, complemented by another on a premium service, followed up with some primary research (discussion with a real live human, in person, by email or over the phone). Why is this four-point approach preferred? Because not everything that counts is in one place, or online. As you will appreciate, access to the Internet does not mean that industry credit meetings can be skipped, customer visitations eliminated or relationships with credit colleagues neglected.
As a researcher, you need to be aware of the changes taking place in the world of webcasts, the Internet version of the conference call. Some companies now use the web as a preferred method of communicating with investors. That means you. So take a look at the main players providing these services to corporations.
| CREDIT MANAGER’S CORNER | Sample article |
It is not enough to win in court because although the paper you receive from the court states that the defendant owes you x amount of dollars it does not mean you will collect your money. There are four important steps to ensure that you win and collect your judgment. If all you care about is suing for the principle of it without any concern for collecting your money, this article is not for you.
The four important steps to improve your chances of winning and collecting in Small Claims Court are:
1) Confirming that the defendant has assets to seize so you can realize on your judgment;
2) Ensuring that you have sued the proper parties and added all possible defendants;
3) Ensure you serve the defendant properly and meet all procedural deadlines; and
4) Hire competent legal representation if a trial is necessary.
Corporate defendants have 4 main assets, their bank account…
| CREDIT LEGAL MATTER - ONTARIO | Sample article |
If you want to collect interest on a delinquent account, your invoices or the payment terms in your contracts must indicate that interest charges will apply to delinquent accounts. Are your interest terms enforceable?
Various statutes and the common law (judge-made law) dictate how much interest you can charge on an outstanding account. If you do not pay attention to these rules, your interest terms will not be enforceable.
[...]
Some contracts require a debtor to make a lump sum payment in the event of a default on the contract including a failure to pay invoices when due. This lump sum payment may or may not be enforceable in the courts depending on whether it is a penalty or a measure of liquidated damages.
A penalty is usually a punishment for the breach of a term of the contract including, but not limited to, a failure to pay. The monetary amount of the penalty has no real connection to the breach involved.
| CREDIT MANAGER'S CORNER | Sample article |
Some updates have been made on the new cheque specifications and cheque imaging recently.
Yes, both the federal Evidence Act and the parallel legislation in most provinces have already been amended to make explicit reference to the admissibility of electronic records in court proceedings. Further, most jurisdictions have well-established business record and banking record provisions that could be used for admitting an image in evidence as proof of a cheque.
In addition, amendments to the federal Bills of Exchange Act that came into force in April 2007 will reinforce the legal framework for cheque images. The new provisions confirm that an image of a cheque or other bill of exchange that is captured by a Canadian Payments Association (CPA) member financial institution (or on its behalf), in accordance with CPA rules and standards, will be legally equivalent to the original item and may be used for all purposes. Of note, the legislation also refers specifically to the admissibility of these images in evidence “for all purposes for which the eligible bill would be admitted in evidence...” The CPA rule and standards related to images are expected to come into effect in 2008.
| How to improve workplace morale through recognition Read more > | June 30, 2010 |
| Pieces of PIE – Political, Industrial and Economic forces at work Read more > | June 23, 2010 |
| Insolvency statistics in Canada – MARCH 2010 Read more > | June 23, 2010 |
| A change in the relationship Read more > | June 16, 2010 |
| Monitoring credit accounts: Forms and checklist for existing customers – Part 2 Read more > | June 9, 2010 |
| Intelligent talent management in the finance function Read more > | June 2, 2010 |
| Communication review Read more > | May 26, 2010 |
| Insolvency statistics in Canada – FEBRUARY 2010 Read more > | May 26, 2010 |
| Monitoring credit accounts - Part 1 Read more > | May 19, 2010 |
| No access to collectors Read more > | May 12, 2010 |
| Understanding cash flow analysis: Cash flow statements - Part 2 Read more > | May 5, 2010 |
| Available access routes Read more > | April 28, 2010 |
| Insolvency statistics in Canada – JANUARY 2010 Read more > | April 28, 2010 |
| They have never needed us more! Read more > | April 21, 2010 |
| Give the Sales team more time to sell Read more > | April 14, 2010 |
| Understanding cash flow analysis: The basics – Part 1 Read more > | April 7, 2010 |
| Free your computer from electronic clutter Read more > | March 31, 2010 |
| Creditors... Carpe Diem (seize the day!): New small claims court limit in Ontario Read more > | March 24, 2010 |
| Insolvency statistics in Canada – DECEMBER 2009 Read more > | March 24, 2010 |
| Improving work processes: Distinguish sources of deficiencies - Part 2 Read more > | March 17, 2010 |
| Summary of key legislative amendments: Consumer and other issues - Part 4 Read more > | March 10, 2010 |
| “I’m gonna’ tell!” Read more > | March 3, 2010 |
| TIP OF THE MONTH –X marks the spot for hidden treasures Read more > | February 24, 2010 |
| Seeing the end of the global credit crisis, Coface eases 22 country rating outlooks:The threat from bubbles remains treasures Read more > | February 24, 2010 |
| Summary of key legislative amendments: Transfers at undervalue and preferences - Part 3 Read more > | February 17, 2010 |
| Automated proactive A/R process best practicesFacilitating your dash for cash Read more > | February 10, 2010 |
| Improving work processes – Part 1 Read more > | February 3, 2010 |
| Insolvency Statistics in Canada — NOVEMBER 2009 Read more > | February 3, 2010 |
| Profiling a successful manager Read more > | January 27, 2010 |
| Insolvency outlook – Accompanying the crisis, an exceptional growth in insolvencies Read more > | January 27, 2010 |
| Summary of key legislative amendments – Disclaimer and assignment of agreements and asset sales – PART 2 Read more > | January 20, 2010 |
| It’s time to face up the collection challenge! Read more > | January 13, 2010 |
| How useful are credit reports in this recession? Read more > | January 6, 2010 |
| Insolvency statistics in Canada – OCTOBER 2009 Read more > | January 6, 2010 |
Read all previous credit articles 2009 >
Read all previous credit articles 2008 >
Access to the previous 7 years credit article archives (over 800 articles) >
