Cashflow is the lifeblood  of an organization. An organization may live without profits BUT it cannot survive if it runs out of cash.

A major factor contributing to poor cash flow is not collecting from debtors on time. It is the responsibility of the sales team to collect from their customers. However, the sales team would rather spend their productive time asking for more business from existing customers and meeting new customers.

Sales teams in our experience, collect when push comes to shove, under pressure they call up their favourite customers and ask them to release some pending invoices. However, more often than not, such collections are against the more recent non controversial dues. Payment of the more aged invoices remain outstanding due to some disagreements around the transactions.

This is where GGA comes in.

GGA is a focused B2B Accounts Receivables Management Company. Based on our expertise, we have developed a more systematic way for Debtor’s management that ensures timely payments and minimum roll overs into the next ageing bucket. We focus on

• - Setting up clearly defined invoicing and payment processes
• - Accuracy of invoices, goods/services receipts and of data exchange between seller and buyer
• - Relentless followup to ensure process compliance and adherence to agreed terms

Pre collections steps

We work as an extension of our clients – sales / accounting / operations team and reach out to our clients’ customers to ensure that there is clear understanding and agreement on the supply of goods/services, invoicing, payment processing and terms of payment between them.

Invoicing & Payment process steps

We work with our clients and their customers to ensure that the processes for supply of goods/services, raising and dispatch/receipts of invoices, payment processing, payment mode etc are streamlined, mutually agreed and work with minimum errors.

Payment monitoring and escalation steps

We track the invoice and goods/services receipts for accuracy. Much before the invoice becomes due, we validate if the customers have received the invoice, have they accounted for the same OR do they wish to raise a service or a commercial dispute. GGA works towards dispute resolutions and after the customer is satisfied, requests a promise to pay date in line with agreed terms. We escalate if the funds do not come in by the due date and highlight cases if we notice that the customer has “no - intention/capacity” to pay on time or has “no intention” to pay at all.

The GGA B2B Accounts Receivables Management Process is a win – win situation for all parties – the sales team is happy that their back end is professionally managed, the customer relationship is maintained and the collections targets are met – yet they are not absolved of their responsibility to collect and need to follow up on an escalation highlighted by GGA. The organization is happy that the debtors ageing and DSO is reduced and the customers are satisfied that someone is in touch with them on a regular basis and is listening to their service or commercial issues and solving their problems.

GGA has worked with several service organizations, project companies and product companies and assisted them with their debtor’s management processes. We have more often than not, delivered outstanding results and put our money where our mouth is. There can be nothing more tangible than more Cash in Bank.

The one key issue we face at the commencement of an assignment is “Centralized Customer Database” containing the updated name, address, telephone number, email id of the contact persons and escalation matrix at the customers end. The contact details are either very old or incomplete and the latest details are in the sales team mobile phones or an excel sheet.

Getting access to the right person to connect to becomes an issue, when the sales person leaves the organization. Therefore we suggest that organizations update their customer databases on a regular basis.

Companies with a lower “Order 2 Cash” cycle will enjoy better Cashflow and Return on Capital employed and are more likely to be higher valued then their competitors, as a lower O2C cycle signals better efficiencies, processes and controls. Further, a lower O2C cycle also signals that the cash is reflecting in the company’s bank account and not in the balance sheet as debtors.