1. inflated sales revenue and exaggerated operating profit.

According to China's accounting standards, income should be measured on the accrual basis. When an enterprise increases its accounts receivable, it will also increase its sales revenue and operating profit, which seems to enhance its profitability. However, this profit is not supported by actual cash inflows, but only a book profit, which does not fully reflect the strength of the enterprise.

2. It is easy to break the working capital chain.

Studying the cases of small and medium-sized enterprises in China, it is found that many small and medium-sized enterprises have died of the same fate of broken capital chains, and the weeping lessons of "a penny beats a hero" abound. Accounts receivable is an uncertain part of enterprise income, and a large amount of working capital is deposited in the settlement process, which affects the turnover and use of funds and easily leads to financial crisis of enterprises.

3. Increase the cost burden of enterprises

The larger the number of accounts receivable held by enterprises and the longer the time, the higher the cost that enterprises need to bear. Small and medium-sized enterprises in China are not strong. Relatively speaking, the negative impact of this burden on enterprises will be more prominent.

Second, China's SMEs accounts receivable management problems

1. The phenomenon of exclusive use by one person is serious, and the management concept is backward.

The managers of small and medium-sized enterprises in China are limited by their educational level and vision, and often think that they can fully control the management of enterprises with their personal experience and strength. They believe that enterprises can operate well without the help of modern theories and methods. Of course, they will also ignore the management of accounts receivable. Most people think that "accounts receivable are just small money and don't need efforts."

2. Lack of scientific and perfect internal control system

A perfect internal control system of accounts receivable should include credit sales approval, timely and complete accounting, regular reconciliation and overdue collection. However, at present, many small and medium-sized enterprises in China ignore the constraints of internal control on enterprises, and even write the internal control system in books and hang it on the wall, but it has not been implemented in practice.

3. Lack of effective supervision and feedback mechanism, the phenomenon of aging is serious.

Generally speaking, the small and medium-sized enterprises in China are small in scale, with few assets, simple in institutional setup, and the phenomenon that one person has more posts is more prominent. In this case, it is really very difficult to manage accounts receivable. If the accountant does not check the accounts with the sales department in time, it will lead to the disconnection between sales and accounting. In addition, due to many part-time employees, heavy tasks and low management quality, the collection of accounts receivable is not paid enough attention. Poor collection, coupled with some customers' malicious default, and poor-quality salespeople absconding with money, often occur in small enterprises, which will increase the difficulty of enterprise accounts receivable and make the aging phenomenon increasingly serious.

4. The product lacks sufficient competitive advantage.

The strategic positioning of small and medium-sized enterprises is not clear, and often which line is profitable and which line is crowded by everyone, resulting in monotonous products of many enterprises, lack of differentiation and unique competitive advantages. In addition, the current market mostly belongs to the buyer's market, the cost price is almost transparent, and the buyer's price is suppressed, which makes some following enterprises have no room for expansion and promotion in scale and technology, and gradually lose their ability to compete with leading enterprises, resulting in their market share becoming smaller and smaller, while their production capacity is greater than their own market share, which is bound to lead to product backlog. In order to solve the backlog problem, enterprises have to make concessions in the sales process, such as extending the trial period of products and slowing down the payment time, which increases the amount of accounts receivable, slows down the payment speed, worsens the quality of accounts receivable and further increases the burden on enterprises.

Third, the countermeasures and improvement measures

1. Establish a correct profit view

Enterprises should formulate appropriate development models according to their own products, their own markets and their own conditions. Only under this premise can enterprises establish their own competitive advantages, take the road of differentiation, stabilize the credit sales business at a safe level, and the development of enterprises can enter a benign growth model. Furthermore, in order to uphold the principle of "profit without cash flow is not profit" and strengthen the responsibility of salespeople, we can adopt the method of linking wages and bonuses with sales revenue, and abandon the concept of attaching importance to the growth of sales figures but not to the growth of business potential.

2. Introduce senior talents and advocate the concept of scientific management.

We can consider opening the door, introducing talents and establishing a democratic atmosphere, which can effectively avoid the phenomenon of "one person is the master". Managers should actively listen to other people's opinions, broaden their horizons, introduce scientific management concepts, and improve their management literacy and management level.

3. Establish a customer credit evaluation system

The control of accounts receivable is usually divided into three stages: beforehand control, in-process control and afterwards control. Small and medium-sized enterprises in China should pay more attention to the pre-control stage because of their own characteristics, so as to achieve twice the result with half the effort. Establishing customer credit evaluation system is the most important means of pre-control.

First of all, small and medium-sized enterprises should conduct a detailed survey of customers, mainly focusing on their nature, financial status and reputation, and establish corresponding credit files for ready inquiry. Enterprises should decide whether to carry out credit sales business for customers according to the documents.

Secondly, enterprises should establish appropriate credit policies. The influence of sales accounts receivable on credit depends on the enterprise's credit policy. Enterprises should scientifically manage accounts receivable by determining credit term, credit standard and cash discount.

4. Pay attention to the binding role of internal control of accounts receivable.

The efficiency and effect of internal control directly affect the healthy development of enterprises, and accounts receivable is one of the important indicators to measure the good operation of enterprises, so the importance of internal control to the quality of accounts receivable can be seen. Enterprises should establish the internal control of the following key links:

(1) credit sales declaration and authorization approval system. Reflect the idea of vertical control, clarify the responsibilities of different levels and restrict each other.

2. The post separation system is incompatible. The responsibility and authority of bookkeepers are clear, which can form a state of checks and balances if they are separated from those of the approving personnel, the handling personnel and the property keeping personnel of economic and business matters.

(3) Pay attention to contract management. From the beginning of credit sales, we should be cautious about the signing of contracts, and constantly sort out and inquire during the management process, which will play a basic role in timely checking and supervising the follow-up and implementation of sales and collection.

(4) Establish smooth communication channels. Smooth communication channels can greatly promote the smooth exchange of information between superiors and subordinates and between different departments, ensure the timely, complete and transparent transmission and acquisition of information, and facilitate the monitoring and early warning of accounts receivable.

5. Establish independent audit and strengthen the internal audit system of enterprises. Internal audit is an important part of internal control, shouldering the functions of supervision, feedback and rectification, which can help enterprises find the weak links and existing problems in the business process and improve the recovery rate of accounts receivable.