Credit Matters Newsletter
In This Issue
- What's New At Credit Matters?
- Quote Of The Month
- Monthly Business Observation
- Monthly Business Conundrum
- This Month's Business Inconvenient Truth
- Word Of The Month
- Latest Blogs & Readings
- LATEST COMMERCIAL & CREDIT NEWS BY THOMSON GEER
- The value of team building
- THE BANK DOCTOR
- THE LATEST ASIC UPDATES
- AUSTRAC MEDIA RELEASES
- IBAC UPDATES
- ACCC UPDATES
What's New At Credit Matters?
An article I wrote recently, was published by the A.I.C.M. titled “Can you afford not to employ a professional credit manager?” They have kindly made a copy of the article available for our subscribers which is attached to this newsletter.
Employing a properly qualified and professional Credit Manager has never been more important than in today’s business environment. If you would like to find out more or wish to access professional training for your credit management or accounts receivable employees, contact the A.I.C.M. You may also wish to send your credit management employees to the A.I.C.M.’s National Credit Conference in Melbourne in October, brochure attached.
Attached is a brochure from The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman regarding the independent review of supplier code by the Australian Business Council. Perhaps it may be of value to see if by participating in the review it will help your business get paid quicker.
If you are interested in advertising with Credit Matters, please contact Kim and see what he can do for you. You will be surprised at the very reasonably priced packages which can be arranged to promote your business.
Quote Of The Month
“If you lose money for the firm I will be understanding. If you lose reputation I will be ruthless.”
Warren Buffett
Monthly Business Observation
There are two important business aspects to this month’s quote of the month.The first aspect is the possible loss of money and the second is reputation.
In talking about losing money, we are not talking about the loss of money through stupidity, bad operating processes, bad management, a refusal to learn from experience or fraud. We are talking about the losses which come about by taking well thought out strategies which do not work out as intended or when extending credit.
The realities of business are; not everything we strive for will work out. At times, our efforts may cause a loss to the business. If we have done our homework properly however, there is much to learn from these failures. It is these situations in which Warren Buffet’s quote refers to and is so important for all business managers to understand.
The issue with reputation however, is the crux of all long-term business success. Your reputation is worth dollars in the bank. As we also well know, your reputation is so easy to lose and so hard to restore.
The parties which most value your business’s reputation are your financiers, suppliers, customers, the general public, and equally important, your employees. Each party in their own way will work with your business for mutual benefit when your business has a good reputation.
When your business has a bad reputation, each of the aforementioned parties will only work with your business, if they believe they can make money out of the relationship, irrespective of the benefit to your business.
At the end of the day, a business with a poor reputation rarely survives over the long term or maximises its profit potential. A business with a good reputation however, is likely to survive over the long-term, even when business circumstances are poor. In the good times however, these same businesses are more than likely will be able to maximise its profits.
This month’s quote from Warren Buffet contains two important aspects of business. The first is the possible loss of money and the second is reputation. Losing money is never good, however it can be tolerated to some degree if a business lesson is learnt. Reputation loss however, is never excusable.
Monthly Business Conundrum
Is it better to save money by working short-staffed or to save money across the business by employing enough people to get the work done right the first time and in a timely manner?
By working short-staffed and “harder and meaner”, you can easily identify what you are spending. What you cannot measure are the increased expenses because of tired or disenfranchised employees, lost profits by working inefficiently, lost sales and loss of your organisation’s reputation.
If you resource your business with enough employees, they are generally happier and work smarter. In addition, by working efficiently, you are not wasting time and money to fix unnecessary problems. Finally, and equally important, having a reputation for organisation efficiency, helps to increase your sales reputation.
As always, there are no simple answers. However, experience shows happy staff and increased operational efficiency leads to increased sales, profits and enhanced reputation for doing things right the first time.
This Month's Business Inconvenient Truth
The supplier’s credit manager or accounts receivable employees making contact, is helping the customer protect their credit and payment reputation.
When a supplier’s credit manager or accounts receivable employee makes contact for outstanding invoices, the supplier is in fact helping the customer protect their business’s credit and payment reputation.
All businesses buying on credit may occasionally fall behind in their payments. Many of the reasons are inadvertent and without any intention to delay the payment of the supplier’s invoices.
When contact is made by the supplier’s credit or accounts receivable employees, it is essential the customer has a policy of responding positively to these contacts. Projecting the image that the customer is respectful of the suppliers’ payment requirements is extremely important.
At no time in recent history has the need to protect your business’s payment and credit reputation been more important. There are two reasons for protecting your business’s reputation.
First, there are no secrets anymore and a poor payment history soon becomes known.
Second, the indications are that we are operating in a pre-recession period. The last thing you need is a poor credit and payment reputation when the recession is finally a fact of life.
Ensuring your business responds positively to all supplier contacts is therefore one way you can protect your business’s payment and credit reputation.
Word Of The Month
Is the spelling driver’s licence, drivers’ licence, drivers licence, or driver licence?
Sometimes it’s almost impossible to work out what the correct place an apostrophe should be, or even if it should be used.
Before we answer the above question, let’s first look at visitors book. The visitors book doesn’t belong to a visitor, so there is no possessive apostrophe. In a similar way a licence is a document we acquire when we pass a driving test.
If you visit the VicRoads site you won’t find an apostrophe in drivers licence where it’s used, but more often than not you’ll find driver licence, or licence. However, if you scan the internet you’ll find driver’s licence, drivers licence, driver licence and driving licence. In SA the government site uses driver’s licence. In NSW the government site uses driver licence. In QLD, often licence is used by itself and less often, driver licence.
By not using an ’s’ on the end of driver, the VIC, NSW and QLD government sites avoid the issue with the apostrophe.
In general the spelling should be driver licence without the s and apostrophe, however, often we need to conform to the standards of others. Depending on the state you’re in, you’ll most likely need to check the state’s governing body to see the preferred use or not, of the apostrophe. Alternately, it may be possible rewrite your sentence so no apostrophe is required.
Latest Blogs & Readings
- Business is a Social and Person-to-Person Relationship. You Cannot Have a Relationship with a Software Product!
- MANAGING B2B CUSTOMER FRAUD – TODAY’S TOP ECONOMIC CRIME
- Understanding the Reputational Capital of Your Payables and Receivables Departments
- Avoiding Friendly Fire: Working with Sales People
- This 'old-fashioned' identity theft is just as dangerous as the cyber kind
Latest Blogs
The value of team building
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Latest Blogs
Updates courtesy of www.asic.gov.au
Media Updates
Hot Topics
Media Updates
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Publications & Resources
Media Releases
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Credit Matters is a financial risk management resource centre for the Australian business community. If you are in business, Credit Matters is your ideal source of financial risk management solutions.
Future Opportunities & Possibilities
Credit Matters is continuing to grow and provide marketing and knowledge about financial risks to the Australia business community.
Futhermore, we invite marketing and knowledge ideas from our readers and contributors on how we can assist our respective firms grow. If you have any ideas, please contact me at info@creditmatters.com.au.
If you are interested in finding new ways to reach your marketplace, why not try Credit Matters. Our prices for advertising are very reasonable and advertising packages are on offer to make any cost, even more affordable. So if you are interested in reaching your customers at the right price, please contact Kim at info@creditmatters.com.au for options.