In Focus Risk
Credit control – back office or centre stage?
A quality Credit Control department relies on having a place right at the heart of the company
Matthew Brown-Bolton Chief executive, Leodian Consulting
mbrownbolton@gmail.com
Somewhere around the dawn of time, when I started out in the credit and collections profession, I worked at a major UK retail bank subsidiary in Chester. The offices were on a grand scale (well for those days!) the Litigation & Recoveries department, as it was, comprised 200 souls covering all functions from pre-legal, through to Scottish litigation, motor recovery and insolvency.
Properly featured The bank had a weekly onsite magazine which trumpeted the latest achievements of the business, in particular a focus each week on every team. Sales figured large (of course) with the deals they had won, Customer Services, IT, and Corporate Support. But never Credit Control. At a staff meeting, I stuck my hand up
about this, beginning a tradition of asking awkward questions that has continued for the more than 20 years of my career to date. “When will Litigations & Recoveries get a few column inches in the bank magazine Jon?” I asked of my very long- suffering supervisor. Back came the response – amongst a
backdrop of some sniggering. “Well what we do is not exactly what the
bank would like to advertise, it represents a failure.” “But we have got great relationships with
a lot of our clients, external suppliers, and solicitors,” I responded. “Plus we are adding to the bottom line when we collect bad debt – cash is really important.
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Lofty heights Alas, I was a voice in the wilderness, and I never asked again, until… Fast forward 18 years to a major property
business, where I was now at the lofty heights of national credit control manager. I had joined three years prior, established a team, implemented a new credit-control system, targets, and KPIs.
www.CCRMagazine.co.uk I was very pleased with myself and some
The results were impressive. DSO was brought rapidly under control, revenue recognition was discussed regularly at their business meetings, we even got our slots at those meetings for the first time in the firm’s recent history
of that contentment, I believe, was down to the fact that the Credit Control team sat slap bang in the middle of the surveyors floor space – between the Valuations, and Landlord and Tenant teams – and also within spitting distance of our Office and Industrial Agency. Both myself and the credit controllers
were able to interact quite freely with the surveyors of all levels within the business, from graduate to director. We spoke socially, they understood our pressures – and we understood theirs. The results were impressive. DSO was
brought rapidly under control, revenue recognition was discussed regularly at their business meetings, we even got our slots at those meetings for the first time in the firm’s recent history. At this point, though, the business had
been bought by a foreign engineering firm – and they wanted to apply a shared- services model. That meant that we were going to be
evicted from our spots, to accommodation on the other side of the building, along with the bulk of the property accounting functions. I can tell you that our recognition with
the surveying staff and relationships suffered almost straight away – and, bizarrely, the region in which our office sat retained the worst levels of debt collection, despite the fact that, six months previously, it had been one of the best.
January 2017
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