Commercial Collections Blog

Country Risk Ratings

Country risk refers to risk associated changes in the business environment that may adversely affect operating profits or the value of assets in a specific country.  Country risk ratings look at a country’s specific factors that could adversely affect an insurer’s ability to meet its financial obligations.  As part of evaluating country risk, rating companies identify certain factors within a country.  These evaluations include but are not limited to;
overall country risk rating, political risk outlook, and economic outlook.
Often countries are placed into tiers, ranging from a stable environment with the least amount of risk, to countries that pose the most [...]

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Preventing Inflated Receivables, What’s Really Collectible?

Putting a smart cash management strategy in place is important for your business practice.  The key for a company is to manage its outstanding accounts receivable. If old balances aren’t written off, your A/R becomes inflated and gives a false view of what is really collectible.  Your current A/R should accurately represent what your company is owed.  Know what’s on your A/R and what the depreciation is.
For example, items that can or will be later returned are actually inflated receivables and don’t correctly reflect your expected cash.  Holding on to old accounts can also be costly.  Excessive follow-ups and multiple [...]

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Before Suing Past Due Account

Before filing a lawsuit against a past due account, there should be a chance for recovery, otherwise it would be a waste of time and money to try to collect on that old receivable. A creditor should obtain as much information as possible, not just from its credit application, but it should also conduct a search for tax liens, review a company’s corporate annual reports, etc. Before agreeing to file suit against the debtor for an old balance.
If you need help with your past due accounts contact us.
Burt and Associates
1-877-740-7839
Solid Experience. Strong Solutions. Since 1979
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Accounts Receivable Aging

The accounts receivable aging schedule is a useful tool for analyzing the makeup of your accounts receivable balance. Analyzing the schedule allows you to spot problems in accounts receivable early enough to protect your business from major cash-flow problems.
The A/R aging schedule can be used to identify the customers that are extending the time it takes for you to collect your accounts receivable. If the bulk of the overdue amount in receivables is attributable to one customer, then steps can be taken to see that this customer’s account is collected promptly. If overdue amounts stem [...]

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Short Term Earnings

A corporation’s earnings report can have a devastating effect on its stock price if earnings even barely fail to meet the company’s projections.  If a company misses its earnings estimates, investors may hammer its stock, thinking that the company would have used every accounting trick in the book to meet the projections. Therefore, the reasoning goes, missing projections must mean trouble is ahead.  Such pressure from Wall Street can force companies to implement unusual methods to meet short-term earnings targets, possibly at the expense of longer-term growth. A survey of more than 400 financial executives revealed that more than 70% [...]

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“Cost Cutting Strategies”

 Accounting departments are responsible for more than just keeping financial records. Increasingly, chief financial officers are in charge of cost-cutting strategies for their companies. Such strategies often involve cutting jobs and ending projects, but these are easy short-term fixes that can often fail to address more serious structural issues. Worse, short-term cuts may actually endanger a firm’s potential for growth. For more effective ways to reduce costs, financial officers should carefully and objectively review all of a company’s costs and cut expenses in areas with a long-term strategy in mind. For more information call us at 1-877-740-7839

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“Raising Capital”

An important decision for a company wanting to raise capital is that of choosing its best option among the various ways to obtain/structure financing. Bankers, investment bankers and other financial specialists may offer a number of possibilities besides straightforward bank debt, which is basically a loan that can be a fixed term loan or a revolving line of credit. Other possibilities financial specialists may offer include convertible debt, which is debt that may be converted into equity at some predetermined price per share. Mezzanine debt, which is senior to equity but subordinate to convertible debt, typically has a term [...]

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What is a Automatic Stay?

When a debtor files for bankruptcy, whether it be under Chapter 7 or 11 and whether it be a voluntary or involuntary filing, “all entities” are automatically and immediately stayed from taking any action or continuing any legal action against the debtor.
This includes attempts to collect debt from the debtor by any party.  This also applies to the enforcement of liens against the debtor’s property.
This stay also relates to repossession of property.  If the creditor had repossessed property prior to the filing of the case but had disposed of it by sales, the creditor could, and the key word here [...]

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Assessing Credit Risk

It is always important for today’s credit executives to “look beyond the figures” when evaluating corporate financial statements. Following are some of the areas that credit and financial professionals should be aware of when assessing business credit risk.
First, you should determine whether there are any off-balance-sheet transactions such as operating leases that should be capital leases or capital leases that should be operating leases. Next, determine if there are any hedging strategies in place that may not be actual hedges.  Also, find out if derivatives being used are liquid and whether the company has what are called “naked” positions. Further, [...]

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Valuation of Intangible Assets

An evaluation report intangible in a number of important properties. First, the report includes comprehensive and relevant data, analysis and publication of an evaluation method. Moreover, such an evaluation should be the goal, not only remembers the positive but also negative factors that may affect the intangible assets.
This report should be easy to follow the information included in the analysis and what has been done the analysis and conclusions of the assessment. technical jargon should be avoided, but when used must be properly defined.
As with any preparation of a business, intellectual property valuation report should be logically from the data [...]

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