Watch out for wording in customer documents - Business Works
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Watch out for wording in customer documents

Philip King of ICM M ark Prisk, Minister of State for Business and Enterprise, and the Institute of Credit Management (ICM) have teamed up to provide a monthly ‘tip’ for small businesses to better manage their cashflow.

"Watch out for any wording in documents from your customer that changes the agreed payment terms. If you accept their order, you might also be accepting their changed payment terms."

Check out the ICM web site (below) for the guides.


Experian analysis of invoices submitted to four FTSE100 companies shows that many were submitted late, many were deficient, and many were both late and deficient. Ensuring effective management of customer relationships, invoicing and cash flow can make a huge difference to profitability.

However big your business, cash flow is critical to survival and success. Whereas larger companies may have sophisticated in-house credit management teams to help them, smaller companies are often so focused on the day-to-day challenges of running their business that cash flow management can sometimes be overlooked.


"Providing monthly ‘tips’ is the perfect way of getting good advice into the hands of busy business owners," says Philip King, the Chief Executive of the ICM and the author of the original Guides. "Good advice is out there," he says, "but getting that advice to small businesses is the challenge."

"We hope that by creating a series of regular ‘tips’ we can help get businesses thinking more about cashflow and how they can easily help themselves to improve their business performance."

The advice comprises a short cashflow ‘tip’ derived from the series of Managing Cashflow Guides that have to date been downloaded more than 230,000 times.


To view the monthly ‘tips’, please visit:
www.creditmanagement.org.uk/bisguides.htm



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