The first is to control accounts receivable in advance, that is, to evaluate the credit qualification of customers and formulate a set of reasonable credit policies to prevent problems before they happen. Credit policy includes three aspects: credit standard, credit condition and collection policy.
First, the credit standard is the basis for an enterprise to evaluate the customer's grade and decide whether to grant or reject the customer's credit. Enterprises should consider three basic factors when formulating or selecting credit standards:
One is the situation of competitors in the same industry. In the market competition. The first thing an enterprise should consider is how to maintain its dominant position in the competition and how to maintain and continuously expand its market share. If the competitor is strong, the enterprise must adopt a lower credit standard than the competitor, otherwise, the credit standard can be correspondingly stricter.
The second is the ability of enterprises to bear the risk of default. When enterprises have strong anti-risk ability, they can improve their competitiveness, win customers and expand sales with lower credit standards. Instead, they should choose higher credit standards to reduce the degree of default risk.
The third is the customer's credit status. Enterprises must judge the credit rating of customers and decide whether to give preferential treatment. Customer's credit rating depends on five aspects, namely, credit quality, solvency, capital and collateral, referred to as 5C system.
1. Credit quality: refers to the possibility of customer's performance or breach of contract, which is the primary factor to solve whether to give credit to customers, and is mainly evaluated by understanding the customer's previous payment performance records.
2. Solvency: The level of customer's solvency depends on the quantity and quality of assets, especially current assets and their ratio to current liabilities. The more current assets, the greater the current ratio, indicating that the material guarantee for repayment and liabilities is stronger. On the contrary, the solvency is poor, the liquidity quality is high and the solvency is strong. On the other hand, the solvency is poor.
3. Capital: It reflects the economic strength and financial status of customers and is the ultimate guarantee for customers to pay their debts.
4. Collateral: The assets provided by customers that can be used as credit security guarantees must be actually owned by customers and have high liquidity, that is, liquidity.
5. Economic status: refers to the influence of unfavorable economic environment on customers' repayment ability, and whether customers have strong resilience.
Second, once an enterprise decides to give customers credit concessions, it needs to consider specific credit conditions. Credit term refers to the payment requirements put forward by an enterprise when accepting a customer's credit order, which mainly includes credit term, discount term and cash discount.
1. Credit term: refers to the period during which customers are allowed to purchase goods and pay for them. Usually, extending the credit period can expand sales to a certain extent, thus improving gross profit. However, improper extension of credit period will bring bad consequences to enterprises, increase the capital occupation of accounts receivable and increase the risk of bad debts.
2. Discount period: refers to the period for customers to enjoy the discount. The determination of this period mainly depends on whether the discount loss is less than the interest of bank loans in the same period.
3. Cash discount: in fact, it is the product price and deduction. Enterprises decide whether to provide cash discounts and how much, and the key point is whether the benefits after providing discounts are greater than the cost of cash discounts.
Third, when providing commercial credit to customers, enterprises must consider three issues: first, will customers default or refuse to pay for goods, and to what extent? Second, how to prevent customers from defaulting on their accounts to the maximum extent? Third, once the account is in arrears, what countermeasures should the enterprise take. These collection policies refer to the collection strategies and measures that enterprises should take when customers violate credit conditions, default or even refuse to pay their accounts. The usual step is that when the account is the ambition or refusal of the customer, the enterprise should first analyze whether the existing credit standard and credit system are reasonable, and then collect it by letter or send someone to collect it. When these measures fail, it can bring a lawsuit.
Secondly, for the accounts receivable that have occurred, enterprises should further strengthen their daily management, take effective measures for analysis and control, find problems in time, take countermeasures in advance, and put an end to bad debts. The daily management of accounts receivable includes: the establishment of the time value view of funds, the reconciliation of accounts receivable, the analysis of accounts receivable and the establishment of bad debt reserve system.
1. Time value of funds: refers to the value difference of a certain amount of funds at different time points. We know that today's L yuan is not equal to 1 yuan a year later. If it is deposited in the bank, it will generate interest and increase value. Then, with the passage of time, the capital invested in production and operation will increase in value, that is, the capital has time value, which is reflected in accounts receivable: enterprises borrow money, pay more interest expenses and earn less; If there is no loan. Then the investment of enterprises in working capital will be less, and the value-added income will be less; At the same time, the other party can use this account receivable for business production, thus increasing their income, which is commonly referred to as "borrowing chickens to lay eggs." Therefore, we must establish the time value view of funds and speed up the recovery of accounts receivable. Reduce the cost of accounts receivable to a minimum.
2. The reconciliation of accounts receivable includes two aspects: one is the reconciliation between general ledger and subsidiary ledger, and the other is the reconciliation between subsidiary ledger and current accounts of relevant customer units. In practical work. It often happens that the balance of our subsidiary ledger is inconsistent with the current balance of our client company, which is mainly caused by the disjointed reconciliation work. We know that it is often the sales department that knows these customers better, and they often just sell their products, regardless of whether the money can be recovered or not, and think that the collection is the work of the financial department. But at present, many enterprises are involved because of the large balance of accounts receivable, and the accounting and statements of financial personnel are already very busy. No time and energy to reconcile with customers; Moreover, the general reconciliation work is actively implemented by the creditor unit. As a result, the reconciliation of accounts receivable in enterprises is at a standstill, which makes customers have an excuse to refuse to pay or delay payment because the current accounts are unclear, causing losses to enterprises. Therefore, the reconciliation of accounts receivable should start from the first transaction of sales business, and the sales staff should reconcile with customers regularly and feed back the reconciliation to the financial department in time. Marketing personnel can establish statistical ledgers according to the units they manage, and timely register product distribution, invoice issuance, payment recovery, etc. And can be reconciled with customers in the form of bank statements and confirmed by the other party, thus laying a good foundation for the timely recovery of accounts receivable. As business operators, we should combine the collection of payment, the reconciliation of accounts receivable with the performance of sellers, so that they can realize that they should not only sell their products, but also recover the payment in time or make the current accounts clear, so as to minimize the loss of bad debts.
3. Accounts receivable analysis: analyze the risk procedures of accounts receivable and take certain measures to reduce the risks of accounts receivable when necessary. At work, we can use ABC classification management method in inventory management to classify and analyze accounts receivable.
① Classification according to the causes of accounts receivable: A class of customers sell on credit based on the idea that loans during credit sale are regarded as interest-free or low-interest loans obtained from enterprises. Such customers often try their best to extend the payment time, which greatly increases the cost of enterprise accounts receivable. This kind of accounts receivable is human. Should focus on management. The second kind of customers are accounts receivable generated by selling products on credit with assets as collateral or guarantee due to temporary cash flow problems. Because the mortgage or guarantee contract signed by the buyer and the seller has legal effect, when the payment date comes, the accounts receivable can be collected or auctioned according to the contract. Therefore, this kind of accounts receivable is safe and can be classified as Class B for management. The three types of customers belong to accounts receivable because of the different time of selling products and collecting money. This kind of accounts receivable is caused by time difference and belongs to real accounts receivable. Under normal circumstances, customers will pay quickly after receiving the goods, which is very safe and can be classified as Class C, without focusing on management.
② Analysis according to the aging of accounts receivable: Generally speaking, the longer the aging of accounts receivable, the smaller the possibility of recovery and the greater the possibility of bad debts. According to previous work experience, enterprises can classify the accounts receivable with the longest age and the greatest risk as Class A, the accounts receivable with the shortest age and the least risk as Class C, and the rest as Class B.. For example, the accounts receivable of an enterprise are 10, of which 2 accounts are 3-3.5, 6 accounts are 0.5- 1 year, and the rest accounts are 1-3 years. According to the enterprise's previous experience in accounts receivable, accounts with an age of more than three years are most prone to bad debts. So two accounts for 3-3.5 years.
③ Analysis according to the proportion of accounts receivable: customers with a large proportion of accounts receivable should be divided into eight categories, smaller customers into C category and the rest into B category. For example, the balance of a company's accounts receivable 1999 is 4 million yuan, including a customer10.8 million yuan, a customer of 800,000 yuan, a customer of 750,000 yuan, a customer of 200,000 yuan, an e customer10.7 million yuan, and an existing customer10.5 million yuan. Accounts receivable of customers A, B and C account for 84% of the balance and should be classified as Class A, while the proportion of customers and sub-customers is 65,438+0%, which is classified as Class C and the rest as Class B for management.