1. Write the basic credit law and formulate credit management policies.
Has the enterprise calculated the amount of credit sales every year to maximize the profit of the enterprise? Has the enterprise calculated the relationship between the monthly credit sales amount and cash flow? China enterprises rarely make statistical calculations on the monthly credit sales level and bad debt level, which can be calculated completely. Because the enterprise has no short-term and long-term planning, the credit sales at all stages of the enterprise are blind. Blind sales may lead to excessive sales, large bad debts and overdue accounts, or small sales, shrinking market and reduced income. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate the enterprise's credit policy and seriously implement the enterprise's major policies and management measures as a system.
2. Transform the organizational structure of enterprises and establish credit management departments.
At present, there are two ways of credit management in Chinese enterprises, one is that the person in charge of the business department sells money on credit, and the other is that the person in charge of the financial department sells money on credit. Both methods have many disadvantages. Most enterprises in our country adopt the business model of division all the way to the end. That is to say, in the process of business transactions, business departments or business personnel play an all-round role, including contacting customers, making counter-offers, negotiating and signing contracts, organizing the supply of goods, transporting and delivering goods, confirming quality, collecting accounts, providing customer service, etc., and each link needs the business department to be responsible for itself.
But it is precisely because of this business model that the business department can't manage the accounts receivable wholeheartedly. Account management is very loose and weak. At the same time, the business department is responsible for selling on credit and collecting accounts, which may lead to collusion and corruption between officials and businessmen. There are also some enterprises in China that adopt the management mode that the financial department is responsible for the collection of accounts, but the management level is low and the business is shrinking. Western enterprises all adopt a "three-legged" organizational structure, that is, set up a separate credit management department to comprehensively manage the credit sales of enterprises. The business department is only responsible for contacting customers and delivering goods, while the finance department is only responsible for registering accounts and financing. As for the credit status of customers, what kind of transaction form, the time of releasing accounts and the steps of collecting accounts are all matters of the credit department, and have nothing to do with the finance of the sales department. In this way, the division of labor is meticulous and the responsibilities are clear, and all departments only engage in the most familiar work and supervise and cooperate with each other.
3. Collect customer information and establish a credit evaluation system.
China enterprises generally lack the means of mutual investigation and evaluation. When meeting a new customer, the enterprise can't know its credit, only through its peers. There is also a lack of investigation and monitoring measures for old customers. There is a famous saying in the business world that "the biggest loss comes from friends for many years". On the one hand, China's credit system is not perfect, on the other hand, China's enterprises are backward in concept and unfamiliar with the channels and methods of credit investigation and evaluation. Western enterprises have established a customer file database, each customer has a file number, and new customers must be investigated through various channels, including direct acquisition and indirect investigation; Old customers will review it once in a while, usually once every six months. After obtaining the customer data, it is necessary to sort out and process the data, evaluate the credit limit of each customer, and decide the credit sales method according to the evaluation conclusion. This "tailor-made" credit sales model for each room avoids 70% credit risk from the source. At present, China can understand the credit status of enterprises from multiple channels, and it is not very complicated to establish a credit evaluation model of enterprises. The key is whether the enterprise can be standardized.
4. Establish a full-power guarantee system to transfer the credit risk of credit sales.
In most businesses, whether domestic trade or foreign trade, enterprises rarely think of protecting creditor's rights. Protecting creditor's rights means transferring risky business or increasing safeguard measures. For example, a profitable but risky business, giving up means the loss of potential profits, and signing a contract means huge credit risk, which is uncertain through credit investigation and evaluation. What should enterprises do? At this time, it is necessary to use various means of creditor's rights protection, such as the protection required by enterprises and the credit guarantee services provided by credit service institutions, banks, insurance companies and guarantee companies. An excellent enterprise must learn to choose and use these creditor's rights protection methods flexibly, which can not only make profits, but also avoid risks.
5. Establish an account management system to ensure the timely recovery of accounts.
European and American enterprises have always stressed that "selling goods on credit is an increase in cost, and only by recovering accounts can it become profits". They believe that the period from commodity sales to account collection is an important stage of credit management, and management must be strengthened and standardized. These management measures include receipt confirmation, quality confirmation, customer credit tracking, payment reminder, overdue installment payment, entrusted payment and so on. To strengthen the management of accounts receivable, one is to prevent customers from forming bad payment habits. Statistics show that 84.6% of customers are habitually in arrears. If management is strengthened, 63.2% of customers can pay immediately. The second is to find out the changes of customers' credit status in time, so as to grasp the situation at the first time and deal with it in a targeted manner. Third, the debtor always pays the creditor with the greatest pressure to recover the arrears as soon as possible. There are a lot of bad debts and overdue accounts in Chinese enterprises, which is closely related to the backwardness of accounts receivable management.
6. Improve the awareness of credit management and train all employees of the enterprise.
Strengthening enterprise credit management can't be done by one department or several people in an enterprise, but must be supported and cooperated by the company at all levels from leaders to grass-roots employees. Business department personnel must introduce the enterprise's credit policy to customers in detail at the beginning of business to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts, and understand the customer's credit status in strict accordance with the credit policy formulated by the enterprise. The financial department cooperates with the credit department in fund operation and accounting management, and completes the distribution of accounts and cash. The legal department carefully examines the terms of the contract and cooperates with the credit department to collect debts. The Credit Department manages investigation, review, approval, guarantee, contact and recovery according to procedures, and the Management Department regularly checks the credit implementation of all departments. All these tasks must require employees to have a high degree of credit management awareness and knowledge, and employees must continue to learn in order to master and seriously implement them in the actual business operation process.
Enterprise credit management is an immediate management means. Through the implementation of the above six credit management measures, the bad debt rate, overdue account rate, cash flow, management cost, interest cost and financial cost of the enterprise will be greatly improved, and the comprehensive strength and profitability of the enterprise will be significantly improved. At present, the competent departments of enterprises in various industries and provinces and cities are actively promoting the construction of enterprise credit management system. It can be predicted that in the next five years, most enterprises in China will set up credit management departments and formulate standardized credit policies, and enterprise credit management will become more and more dynamic.