Turn Your Cash Flow Up!
Cash Flow is Better when your Systems Talk
Why you want to integrate your ERP now!
Sales were, incredibly, up – over 200% over last month - and this couldn’t have been predicted because the world had gone crazy with the distancing and food hoarding.
FoodFave was a company that had been around for a long time and their frozen entrees were delicious. Their 12 SKUs enjoyed a stable month-over-month sales trend, but this month the sales reports showed another story.
Since the CEO, CFO, the Controller, and VP Sales couldn't get together in person, John, the CFO, got everyone together on a screen-share.
"Good Lord, Man," exclaimed Henry, the CEO, "why haven’t we been doing screen shares all along? It’s much more productive for me. I hate to say this but the reports you were sending to me were too many pages, and frankly, I just glanced at them. But I see enough to know I have a few questions."
"Wait", said John, "I want to take you through the financials and show you some trends."
"Sure," said Henry, "but since I see that Sales are UP, how are we doing on collecting the receivables? I just saw you flash the Balance Sheet and it looked like we are in a negative cash position. How is that possible?"
John quickly flipped to the Accounts Receivable report and started to page through, saying, "Yes, A/R is at $335,000 – a bit higher this month than last month, but…"
Henry cut him off – "Which are the largest A/R accounts? Who are the ones that owe us over $30K?"
John started to sort the A/R report by balance due. As expected, the top five accounts were the bulk of the receivables.
"Why aren’t we collecting our money?" demanded Henry.
After an uncomfortable silence with the report glowing on the screen, Amy, the Controller ventured to say, "We can drill down on each account right here to show the salesperson associated with the account."
It turned out that of the top five accounts with the largest balances, three of them were linked to Mike, the Salesperson for the Midwest.
"Get Mike on the phone," bellowed Henry.
Sam, the VP of Sales, cut in. "Collections are done by Monica in our Customer Relations department, not by the salespeople."
Amy tried again, saying, "Well, perhaps we can avoid any confrontations and just put a note in the CRM. Monica will see it when she logs on in the morning. We can remind her that our focus is on Cash Management, and keeping a high AR turnover ratio is a Key Performance Indicator that’s critical to achieve."
"Yes," John added, "Monica is good when she knows the bigger picture. We’ll add A/R to her dashboard, and this won’t be a problem in the future."
"Good," laughed Henry. "Then Mike can sell, sell, sell and Monica can collect, but keep on her to do so more quickly. You’re all doing GREAT! Thanks to all and signing off for the day."
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Does your company need to get all systems blaringly integrated now? Get all departments interconnected so that key people can keep an eye on what is important while it is happening!
Perhaps it’s time for an ERP Checkup. Especially in this crazy time, it’s essential to have your systems integrated and talking to each other so that you have your finger on the pulses of your business daily.
Don’t put it off to a future date – Now is the time to add functions to your business systems to further enable your business to accelerate the cash flow curve.
Give us a call and let’s get on a screen-share to talk about how to keep your systems integrated to support your sales and cash flow, today! 310-445-5300
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Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants (RJMC) is expert in assisting you to plan for operational and systems improvements. We can meet you via screen-share. Call today to get more insight regarding our approach to increasing the cash flow in your business through improved operations and systems. We Get Projects Done!
