Commercial Collections Blog

Many Thanks to You

I wanted to tell those of you who have participated in our Customer Satisfaction Surveys thank you. We really do appreciate all the feedback we have received from you regarding our commercial collection services. From the hundreds of surveys that were sent out to Fortune 500 companies all the way down to those 1 and 2 person offices, about 93% of them have been returned with nothing but good things to say about Burt & Associates. That makes us smile.

When we decided to send out the Customer Satisfaction Surveys last month, we figured we’d get a few of them back, but we have been pleasantly surprised at the overwhelming response we have had so far. So many of you are giving us your honest opinions about our services and our website, which will help us provide better service for all your A/R needs.

One of the comments we are most frequently getting is about our website – how user friendly and easy it is to navigate. You are also sharing with us that you really enjoy being able to check the status of all your accounts with one quick and easy click of your mouse and what a nice change this is from other commercial collection agencies.

Also, many of you said that you felt VERY confident giving us your business based on the fact that we are an SAS 70 Certified company. Along those same lines, we have had several responses regarding our collection methods and how grateful you are for all the monies we have collected for you.

In case you have not received a Customer Satisfaction Survey and would like to, contact your National Account Rep today and request your survey – we’ll send it right out to you because your opinions matter. We want to be YOUR commercial collection agency.

Thanks, again!!

Jerry Curtis
President & CEO

Educational Tidbits For Today’s Credit Executive
Companies Lag in Cash Management

It’s known that reducing working capital needs can improve a company’s overall cash flow, which can in turn increase a firm’s return on assets. But, according to a recent survey by Hacket-REL, large companies in the U.S. are behind in their attempts to better manage their cash in order to generate more money from operations. According to the survey, some of the largest public firms are carrying a total of as much as $760 billion in excess working capital, which is the cash that companies use to finance day-to-day operations, because of inefficiencies in the way they collect bills, pay their suppliers and manage inventory, especially from overseas. The survey, which involved 1,000 large companies across fifty-six industries, found that the money tied up in working capital was reduced by an average 5.7% from 2005. More than half of the companies fared worse in trying to reduce capital compared to the year before or showed no change. Some twenty companies showed an improvement in working capital numbers, down by almost half from the year earlier.

The Credit Manager’s Q&A Corner

Question: Explain several scenarios of how the current private-equity buyout craze could end.

Answer: No doubt the current private-equity buyout binge will end one day, but one question for now is how and why. Some analysts have boiled the possibilities down to three scenarios. First, some significant economic event could suddenly dry up free capital, causing investors to avoid buyouts. A second possibility is that lenders may eventually have to tighten their loan standards, which would crimp available cash for buyouts, similar to what has already begun happening in the housing market. Finally, a more benign consideration is that the buyout mania could simply fizzle out on its own if returns gradually decline, which would prompt private-equity investors to take their dollars elsewhere.

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