That sounds like a great process Randy and similar to what we do (although my team uses a crystal report that they review once/day for likely shipments). I think one of the points here is that you have to actively manage the process. The system can't manage it for you, and I'm not sure you want to cede control of this kind of activity too heavily to any piece of software.
-bws
--
Brian W. Spolarich ~ Manager, Information Services ~ Advanced Photonix / Picometrix
   Â
bspolarich@... ~ 734-864-5618 ~ www.advancedphotonix.com
-----Original Message-----
From:
vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:
vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Randy Weber
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 4:43 PM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] 407a customer credit hold message is making my folks crazy
I created a dashboard based on a query called CreditHoldDueToShipToday
just for this purpose. It shows the order, customer, credit hold and
credit override and a few other fields.
Our AR person reviews the dashboard throughout the day and tries to get
orders shipped whenever possible via the Credit OverRide.
I also added a context menu for Customer Credit Manager so she can
right-click from the dashboard and get directly to the OverRide form.
Randy Weber
From:
vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:
vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Thomas Rose
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 1:36 PM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] 407a customer credit hold message is making my
folks crazy
As a finance person who has been a credit manager, I will say that there
can be good reasons for setting credit limits on a customer no matter
how long you have been doing business with them. Among those reasons
are:
- Even a good customer can get into financial difficulty. If you are not
paying attention, it can happen overnight. A customer that has been
paying its bills on time can all of a sudden stop paying.
- Some customers may become too large a part of your business if you
don't put some limits on. This really is part of company culture. Some
companies will be very uncomfortable if one customer is 10% or more of
their sales. Other companies exist to serve just one customer. If you
don't feel comfortable with the exposure, then setting credit limits is
one way to prevent any customer from being too big.
I will definitely agree with you that the finance people should be able
to satisfactorily explain the rationale for whatever credit limits they
want to place, and all credit limits should be regularly reviewed. Also,
never set credit limits to prevent any chance of a credit loss. I know
of only one way to avoid all credit losses and that is to not sell on
credit. For most companies, not selling on credit means not selling at
all, and, thus, going out of business.
Thom Rose
Controller
Electric Mirror LLC
HOTEL LUXURY
"The World Leader in Back-lit Mirrors & Mirror TV Technology"
T 425 776-4946
A 11831 Beverly Park Rd, Bldg D, Everett, WA 98204 USA
www.electricmirror.com<
http://www.electricmirror.com>
From:
vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:
vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
Behalf Of CharlieSmith
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 10:58 AM
To:
vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: [Vantage] 407a customer credit hold message is making my
folks crazy
Ask the question, why is there a credit limit to begin with. If you have
been doing business with someone for over 5 years, why would you want to
have a credit limit. If you have been doing business with a customer for
5 days or 5 weeks, yes maybe. Remember that no (or unlimited) credit
limit is actually a zero (0) value.
Secondly who is reviewing these credit limits? Are they adding the
review dates? If so, create a dashboard for those that need review or
are to be reviewed in the next x days or weeks.
Question this with the Financial management. "Always done this" is not a
good answer. Have them give you the business case for the business need.
Is the business experiencing a number of defaults? What is the reason
for the defaults. Who checks the D&B on new customers? At what point
should you stop worrying about the customer and credit issues?
Don't wuss out. Ask the hard questions and require answers that make
sense.
Charlie Smith
Smith Business Services / 2W Technologies LLC
www.vistaconsultant.com <
http://www.vistaconsultant.com/> /
www.2WTech.com
________________________________
From:
vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto:
vantage@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com>]
On Behalf
Of LeAnn Marruffo
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:20 PM
Well, and there it is. I'm trying to figure out if we have these set
simply because "we've always done this" or because there is a business
process driving it. I'm spending some time today with our A/R, learning
the business process better, so I can recommend something for us to use
going forward. If we don't include open orders, it will be a limit on
invoice dollars alone- that should be good enough? If a customer gets to
a point where we don't even want to take an order, that's when we would
put them on hard stop- credit hold. Not necessarily when they are within
terms. I think if we had a longer lead time and more capabilities with
credit horizon, the credit limit would make more sense. But as a hard
stop flat total, I'm not so sure.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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