1. THE ORDER TO CASH CYCLE
Five ways to add value to your business
 How to enable your company to grow
 The added value of credit insurance to your business
 How to understand the narrative of the process
 Customer relationship management
 The rules of engagement regarding the process
How to enable your company to grow
We have all attended meetings where your focus is just to get through to year end,
hit your target, and to move on. However, senior management are already into the
2017 planning cycle and want your budget figures for the new year. In addition to
this, it creates management expectation to grow the company by a percentage.
(target to grow the company for 2017)
So how do you come up with a plan to enable the company to grow? Each division
across the company will be expected to improve on their existing performance to
reach the new target, focus on reducing the costs and maximising the improvements
on performance. Credit limits will have to grow accordingly and be increased thus
increasing the risk to the business
Credit Insurance
There are two schools of taught on credit insurance. One is that 80% of your
turnover comes from 20% of your customers and these subscribers would be of the
opinion that these customers are near enough to been blue chip customers, so why
incur the costs of credit insurance? The writer would be of the opinion that credit
insurance is an enabler to the business helping the business to grow by credit
insurance insuring the debtor’s book and the extra risk you may incur. You can
actually learn more about the market place and more importantly learn more about
your customer’s true value through credit insurance. The value passes across several
areas of the business, right up to the board room and on to the shareholders.

2. Understanding the narrative
In most organisations there are several reports usually by each division of the
company that are usually published on a monthly basis. Each division hold monthly
meetings with their stake holders where they report on the figures and the reasons
as to why they achieved or all the reasons why they did not. The writer recommends
reporting by a singular view of the figures as a one page report. The report will show
the performance of the figures across the entire order to cash cycle (divisions).
The report can also be aligned to each division K P I’s (key performance indicators).
You can have all the reports in the world; the trick is to have the correct audience to
address.
Customer relationship management
A key requirement of any Credit manager skill set is to have the ability to be able to
identify the correct stake holders across the order to cash cycle. One of the
company’s K P I’s will be to grow the business; each division will need to understand
their role in credit management, their responsibility. The challenge to the credit
manager is how to present the correct content to the correct audience in a language
that the stake holders understand.
The singular view can also be aligned to the K P I (key performance indicators) as a
balanced score card in a correct format. So to summarise on the point of customer
relationship management, there are two sides to the point, the internal point
outlined above, and the customer (external customer) interface where the singular
view is presented to the customer in a language that they understand. For example,
the number of invoices against the number of credit notes aligned to the ERP
(enterprise resource planning) reason codes (System generated) aligned to the KPI
agreed between the customer and the company. A balanced score card is a clear
indicator of how the accounts receivable function is performing across the order to
cash cycle.
The rules of the game
Although I have outlined above the various trigger points in the business that need
to be in place .The rules of the process are the foundations of the business.
Reporting acts as a transparency tool for all stake holders, senior management, audit
committees, directors, and shareholders.
Policy, procedures, reporting/analytics and a clear understanding of how to read the
figures under pins the company’s ability to grow. The writer was asked to briefly
outline one of the services offered by Moonwater, hopefully this brief’s explanations
has changed your perspective on the order to cash cycle.

3. I would happy to answer any questions you may have on this topic and discuss easier
ways on how to train or implement any of the above with you and teams. I thank you
for taking the time to read this article.
Other services I can offer are:
 Balanced score carding
 Process mapping
 Change management
 Emotional Intelligence/mentoring
 Train the trainer
 Risk management
 Finance for non-finance people