Market economy is essentially a credit economy, and credit sales have become the most effective means for businesses to win customers and expand sales and business scale. Credit-based settlement has increasingly replaced cash settlement as the dominant form of inter-enterprise transactions. However, more and more enterprises find that although the profit on the income statement is very considerable, the disposable free cash flow on the cash flow statement is actually stretched. Enterprises can't turn profits into disposable cash flow, so they can't grasp investment opportunities, which limits the development of enterprises and even affects their survival. As far as China's enterprise groups are concerned, this problem is more prominent.
Whether an enterprise can effectively control accounts receivable not only directly determines the turnover level of working capital and the final operating profit, but also directly affects sales performance and market competitiveness. However, there are many problems in the management of accounts receivable in Chinese enterprises.
1. Accounts receivable management responsibility has not been implemented.
In many enterprises, the sales department and the financial department perform their respective duties, and no one is really responsible for the management of accounts receivable, so no one is responsible for the collection problem. When the external credit risk increases, a large number of accounts are in arrears, and collection begins after a long period of arrears. As a result, the past is not forgotten, and the burden is getting heavier and heavier.
2. The evaluation of the sales department is biased.
Although the collection responsibility of the sales department has changed the situation of unmanned management of accounts receivable, it actually brings greater risk of default to enterprises, because the goal and ability of sales staff lies in sales rather than collection. The actual situation is that many business people blindly release accounts under the sales incentive mechanism, and the collection afterwards is not enough. Although sales have gone up, it often brings serious bad debts and bad debts to the company.
It is difficult for the financial department to control credit sales and collection.
Although the financial department is responsible for strengthening the special management of accounts receivable, it is often far from the actual situation. Because the financial department actually doesn't know the customer situation and transaction background, it can't form scientific and effective management. For accounts receivable, the control is too strict, and the sales of enterprises decline; Either out of control, the arrears will still appear in large numbers.
Second, accounts receivable management objectives
The goal of accounts receivable management is to balance the yield of credit sales and the holding cost of accounts receivable, and then to take scientific and effective measures to ensure the liquidity of accounts receivable, and finally to maximize the efficiency and value of enterprises, which is actually to pursue the best liquidity and effectiveness. Among them, the work of the collection department is mainly to improve the liquidity index of accounts receivable. In addition, according to the requirements of efficiency, accounts receivable should be kept at a reasonable scale to achieve higher sales revenue and avoid excessive holding costs. Moreover, accounts receivable should be recovered in time to avoid bad debt losses.
Third, establish enterprise credit management mechanism.
In China, the lack of enterprise credit management is an urgent problem. Domestic enterprises are more and more aware of the importance of credit management, and most of them have taken relevant measures, such as setting up credit departments or clarifying the credit management functions of relevant departments, formulating credit management objectives and policies, and strengthening the supervision and collection of accounts receivable. But overall, the function of credit management is still relatively weak. Therefore, the author thinks that the credit management of enterprises should be strengthened from the following aspects.
1. Establish practical credit management objectives.
First of all, it is necessary to decompose the strategic objectives of the enterprise layer by layer, and make a concrete and in-depth analysis of the current accounts receivable and customer exchanges. We can set the goal of credit management from the following points: ① to ensure the rapid recovery of accounts receivable; (2) Maximize the company's profits and sales; ③ Maintain the relationship with customers; ④ Enhance the company image.
2. Establish customer credit data files.
The credit department keeps and updates customer information in a centralized way, and can no longer be scattered and disorderly. These materials should include the historical information of the enterprise's contact with banks and major customers, mainly including the basic information of customers, recent financial statements, the certificate of the bank where the account is opened, and some credit ratings, credit application forms, copies of business licenses, credit investigation reports, contracts or orders, payment records, correspondence, etc. published by banks and other financial institutions. The establishment of these complete files can also prevent the loss of customer resources caused by the departure of business personnel. The credit department should gradually improve the credit evaluation function of customers and evaluate the credit rating of customers according to the collected credit information.
3. Formulate a strict and unified credit policy and strictly implement it within the enterprise credit department.
The enterprise's credit policy is formulated from three aspects: credit standard, credit condition and payment policy. When formulating, we should combine our own actual situation, take into account the principle of cost-benefit and the credit status of customers, and formulate accurate and standardized credit policies. In the process of credit policy implementation, on the one hand, we should strictly implement different credit standards according to customers' credit rating, and at the same time, we should adjust the credit limit to customers at any time according to the dynamic changes of customers' credit status, so as to dynamically maintain the consistency of credit policy implementation. In addition, when formulating credit policies, different products should be treated differently, and a one-size-fits-all credit policy cannot be adopted.
4. Establish a credit manager incentive system.
The credit management functions of the sales and credit departments are unified through the credit sales responsibility system or the sales collection responsibility system. We can adopt the responsibility system of sales payment for sales staff, regard the completion of payment as an important link in the sales staff's business process, adopt the two-level indicators of sales payment as the assessment standard, and link them with the salaries and bonuses of relevant personnel.
5. Strengthen customer information feedback.
On the one hand, enterprises should formulate the evaluation standard of customer credit rating, on the other hand, business personnel should timely summarize the customer credit situation reflected in the specific business process. For old customers, their credit status can be summarized quarterly or monthly; For new customers and customers with scattered businesses, the credit status of customers should be summarized after each transaction, and the business personnel should quantitatively score the credit status of customers according to the corresponding standards, and these corresponding materials should be included in the customer files as customer credit information. Enterprises should compare the future performance of customers with the summary of business personnel in a timely manner and strengthen the assessment.
Fourth, measures to strengthen the management of accounts receivable