1. Review the lag from the date of sale of goods and services on credit to the mailing of (a) invoices and (b) the first billing. To the extent feasible, invoices should be designed to also be the first billing to encourage immediate payment by the customer. The time lag here can avoid a significant adverse affect on early collection.
2. If cash discounts are given to customers for early payment, review their effect on early cash collections and whether the discount is too high or too low. Also, monitor whether the discount policy is being violated in the company (i.e, allowing the discount after its expiration day). Alternatively, if discounts are not given, does the company assess for late payment? How much cash inflow is lost by not charging for late payments?
3. Review the credit-granting process to determine whether bad credit risks are being screened out . Also are delinquent receivables being identified early and collection action taken before the receivable becomes an uncollectible (i.e., bad debt?
4. Consider ways to decrease the time a pay by check between the date that customers pay by check and the date that the cash is available for use in the company’s bank account. This the time is call “float” and it may vary from one day to ten days. Float can be very costly because (a) the cash inflow is slow and (b) the opportunity to earn the interest on the cash during the float period is lost. The float lag can be minimized by techniques such as following:
(a) Use a lockbox system--the purpose of a lockbox system is to reduce the float time of cash from the customer to the company. The way a lockbox system operates has been summarized as follows:
The essential concept of the lockbox is that the corporation contracts with a bank receive and process incoming remittances. The corporation then instructs its customers to remit payment to a post office box in a designated city (which may be some distance from the corporation's own offices).Then, each day, the bank collects the contents of the post office box and processes the contents in dance with the corporation's instructions.
The checks are endorsed credited to the “account of the within named payee" and deposited into the corporation's account at the bank. The bank then forwards all backup documentation (such as invoices, empty envelopes and photocopies of the checks) to the corporation, and may provide the corporation with telephone notification, data transmission and so on.
From incoming funds to earning assets. The primary objective of a wholesale lockbox is to accelerate the conversion of incoming funds into earning assets. The lockbox accomplishes this objective for two reasons.
First of all, incoming mail time is often reduced because the bank may collect the contents of the post office box far more often than the corporation would itself. Very often, bank lockbox departments work throughout the evening and on weekends and holidays place the lockbox close to the consumers, thus further reducing mail time.
Second check clearing time for the incoming checks reduced. Reasons for this include the location of the lockbox nearer to the customers and the fact that the bank receives the incoming checks at its operations center early in the day, thus enabling the bank to enter the checks into the check collection system as soon as possible.
The process is designed to significantly reduce the mail time for cash inflows. The bank charges the company a specified amount per collection. A lockbox system should be carefully analyzed on a cost-benefit basis because the decrease in float time may not fully compensate for the cost of the system.
b) Establish bank account in outlying area where a designated company employee receives the customer’s payment and immediately deposits the checks in the bank account.
(c) Decrease the check- processing time (check received from customers) within the Company and make daily night deposits of all cash and checks received during the day.
(d) Promote timely and frequent billing on all receivables. Do not use month-end billings, bill immediately after sale.