When do you pay and when are you paid?

Timing your cash flows can be art but with a careful approach, you can make it a science:

• The Purchase ledger should lists all due payments and Payrol
  Learning Superior Customer Service Skills
  Is customer service a department in your company? Is customer service simply the title of an order entry department? Is customer service an empty shell, long on rhetoric but short on delivery? Does the term customer service actually mean anything, or is it a leftover expression from an era of days gone by?Superior customer service is indeed alive and well alive and working at many prog
  A client set me a puzzle the other day when he chose "Auditing my cash flows" as the goal for our session. He had just had a meeting with his accountant and was embarrassed to find he could not explain discrepancies between his incoming and outgoing monies. How could he stop the cash leakage and was it down to commercial folly or someone ripping him off? Here are some of the ideas we generated:

  How do you accumulate evidence?

  A standard audit principle is that "If it’s not recorded, it didn’t happen". So every time you buy or sell anything, you need to be given an invoice, bill, chit or receipt. If the cost is less than ?10, write one for yourself - as a record of date, supplier and cash value. You can insist the suppliers deliver their goods with an Invoice.

  BACS transfers, credit payments and debit cards automatically provide this sort of forensic evidence so you are well advised to stop paying or receiving cash and to channel everything through your plastic and electronic banking.

  Who do you trust to act for you?

  You can use the division of labour to create the controls and counter-checks that you need - so that the employee needing payment is not the person who signs the cheque, the storekeeper does not sign the issuance chit and the accountant does not tally the bank statements.

  In a similar manner, apply reality checks to your sales activities:

  • A bad sale or bad debt is a waste of your resources.
  • If sales staff give discounts and credit periods that should reduce their commission and rewards. Then sales enthusiasm will be tempered by the risks they take with your money.
  • Sales people should be rotated around the major accounts and sales regions before they become too cosy and forget how to see their prospects with fresh eyes.

  When do you pay and when are you paid?

  Timing your cash flows can be art but with a careful approach, you can make it a science:

  • The Purchase ledger should lists all due payments and Payroll
    Profit from Your Event - Define Your Payment Rules
    Frank Richards is a Business Management Consultant who specializes in Service Level Agreements. Last month he ran four seminars in major Australian cities but he's finding that the ticket money does not cover his costs.In these days of instant payment you would believe that the problem of unpaid registration fees is a negligible issue. Unfortunately the days of instant payment do not c
    How do you accumulate evidence?

    A standard audit principle is that "If it’s not recorded, it didn’t happen". So every time you buy or sell anything, you need to be given an invoice, bill, chit or receipt. If the cost is less than ?10, write one for yourself - as a record of date, supplier and cash value. You can insist the suppliers deliver their goods with an Invoice.

    BACS transfers, credit payments and debit cards automatically provide this sort of forensic evidence so you are well advised to stop paying or receiving cash and to channel everything through your plastic and electronic banking.

    Who do you trust to act for you?

    You can use the division of labour to create the controls and counter-checks that you need - so that the employee needing payment is not the person who signs the cheque, the storekeeper does not sign the issuance chit and the accountant does not tally the bank statements.

    In a similar manner, apply reality checks to your sales activities:

    • A bad sale or bad debt is a waste of your resources.
    • If sales staff give discounts and credit periods that should reduce their commission and rewards. Then sales enthusiasm will be tempered by the risks they take with your money.
    • Sales people should be rotated around the major accounts and sales regions before they become too cosy and forget how to see their prospects with fresh eyes.

    When do you pay and when are you paid?

    Timing your cash flows can be art but with a careful approach, you can make it a science:

    • The Purchase ledger should lists all due payments and Payrol
      Job Offer Negotiations: Getting What You Want
      You have worked hard at finding your next job. You have come through many obstacles and have reached your career objective. You have received a job offer. You’re thrilled. Mission accomplished. After all, what else is left to do?A majority of job candidates do not negotiate their offer. They are happy just to have received it. They just want to start their new job and start gett
      debit cards automatically provide this sort of forensic evidence so you are well advised to stop paying or receiving cash and to channel everything through your plastic and electronic banking.

      Who do you trust to act for you?

      You can use the division of labour to create the controls and counter-checks that you need - so that the employee needing payment is not the person who signs the cheque, the storekeeper does not sign the issuance chit and the accountant does not tally the bank statements.

      In a similar manner, apply reality checks to your sales activities:

      • A bad sale or bad debt is a waste of your resources.
      • If sales staff give discounts and credit periods that should reduce their commission and rewards. Then sales enthusiasm will be tempered by the risks they take with your money.
      • Sales people should be rotated around the major accounts and sales regions before they become too cosy and forget how to see their prospects with fresh eyes.

      When do you pay and when are you paid?

      Timing your cash flows can be art but with a careful approach, you can make it a science:

      • The Purchase ledger should lists all due payments and Payrol
        Five Secrets to Becoming the Perfect Employee That Everyone Wants - Part One
        With ever increasing deadlines, decreasing resources, and changing workplaces, sometimes it can be challenging to be a good employee, much less a perfect employee. The employee who can rise above the everyday problems and embrace challenges will be the person that every employer wants.The following are five secrets to being the perfect employee everyone wants:1. Respect.
        torekeeper does not sign the issuance chit and the accountant does not tally the bank statements.

        In a similar manner, apply reality checks to your sales activities:

        • A bad sale or bad debt is a waste of your resources.
        • If sales staff give discounts and credit periods that should reduce their commission and rewards. Then sales enthusiasm will be tempered by the risks they take with your money.
        • Sales people should be rotated around the major accounts and sales regions before they become too cosy and forget how to see their prospects with fresh eyes.

        When do you pay and when are you paid?

        Timing your cash flows can be art but with a careful approach, you can make it a science:

        • The Purchase ledger should lists all due payments and Payrol
          Customer Service Fiasco - Where Were You When Bob Left Your Store?
          Bob came into your store at 5:55 pm. I know, he should know better. You close up shop at 6:00pm and why should you allow a customer to disturb the staff when they are cleaning up and closing out the register?Poor Bob. He is just too "thick" to get it. This guy walks in after rushing right from the job site to arrive at your meat market in time to buy chicken for dinner. In fact,
          ke with your money.
        • Sales people should be rotated around the major accounts and sales regions before they become too cosy and forget how to see their prospects with fresh eyes.

        When do you pay and when are you paid?

        Timing your cash flows can be art but with a careful approach, you can make it a science:

        • The Purchase ledger should lists all due payments and Payroll should predict your wage payment so you can plan your payments.
        • The Sales ledger holds the details of sales and any credit given to debtors, their expected payments, the actual payments of cash you have received and the dates of each so you can plan your receipts.
        • You should track the difference between your receipts (cash in) and payments (cash out) at least on a weekly basis – what you measure you can manage.

        So my client took these ideas for careful management of his cashflows and has been applying them over the past three months. Already he feels he has a better grip on what is happening and how his accounting numbers are put together.

        He is also much clearer about who he can trust and who he needs to watch in case they are bending the figures. I was interested to hear that "storage wastage" and "sales shrinkage" had reduced - and that alone paid for my invoice.