Make
the call
An accounts receivable processor was posting accounts. Customer had not
paid his bill. I asked ar to call this person to see if he was going to
pay his bill. A couple of hours later, I am in a hurry and ask, "What
did he say?"
I am told he didn't say anything. What do you mean nothing at all was
he just quiet.
"No I sent him an email".
I wanted you to call him. About a half hour later I again asked what
his response was.
Answer "He doesn't say anything."
I asked did he just hang up or what.
"I instant messaged him"
Does your team make all the calls they should?
Did they sacrifice a small account for a bigger one because they only
have so much time to call?
Where is the Payment?
A business with about 9 thousand clients was delivering a service and
receiving payments of $20 per month. As the client base increased,
another accounts receivable clerk was added. A process was put in place
and more checks came in and were processed as before. The new clerk had
to record the checks to deposit slips and turn them over to someone
else to deposit. Accounts receivable called on clients who did not meet
the monthly payments. Many said they had paid, but there was no record
of payment. A supervisor looked at the trash can one day and saw
envelopes to the company with checks in them. The new clerk had tossed
them in the trash. She was fine until more checks came in and she did
not have time to complete deposit slips by end of day, so she just
threw them in the trash.
.
This
thing is out of balance
I was one of a finance team put together to consolidate 25 acquired
companies for a major entertainment corporation. The companies were
distributed over 8 states. To do business this company had to pay rent
to landowners in all the states. Each acquired company had its own
contract for these rentals. Each with different parameters. Some
monthly, some quarterly, some annually. The challenge was finding who
owned the properties based on the contracts. Then again we did not see
all the contracts. If a payment was not made one year it was 2 years
later when the company was acquired and their were no contracts or
accruals. Each company needed checkbook reconciliation for accounts and
accruals. This was quite the challenge as you can imagine that every
company had different steps in their accounting. The managers had all
left.
The accountants started getting frustrated that these accounts needed
lots of work to reconcile. Some data was hard to find.
Slowly we began to set process in place and provide consistent
reconciliation process and reports to balance accounts.
Still some issues would come up and we now worked harder to reconcile
the most troublesome.
As some complaints grew I finally told one of the accountants, "We get
to solve something here, if it was too easy we would not be needed."
Eventually consistensy allowed the merging of these varying entities.
A company expanded its presence and is now a major player in its market (Fortune 500). As it began its expansion, I was called to assist in account reconciliation. It turns out I went to school with one of the credit managers. This credit manager was frustrated. The sales team (hundreds of independents) were selling services and getting a bonus for every sale. Pressure started when some started to sell large subscriptions. Some weeks 30 at a time. This just put more pressure on others, then other sales people also started making big sales. How were they doing so well. The credit manager would have to collect on some of these after a couple of months. It turned out some salesman had found a buyer with stolen credit cards. They would order subscriptions that turned out to be fraud. The salesman did not try to dig deeper because he got his commission on sale. Inconsistent client payments need careful review. Beware how you structure your commissions.
Quotes
;“Hmmmm"