Technology and efficiency in charges

By Fernando Amaral, Sendys CEO and Sendys Group Chairman – Do It Magazine

Charges. Perhaps the most unloved of the sales phases, either by customers or by sales and supplier management teams. Although it is not the most popular topic, it must be approached quite naturally and in an uncomplicated way. After all, it is absolutely critical to the financial health of any company, particularly in the troubled times of the pandemic that we live in.

 

With the health crisis particularly plaguing micro, small and medium-sized companies, those that are most exposed to external risks, it is time to adapt to the current situation and anticipate the future, to reinvent processes and sales, but also to be particularly careful when charging.

 

At charging level, the success of any business depends on two factors: the predictability of cash flow and financial liquidity, as well as the best business relationships with customers and partners. For this, it is essential to have an efficient charges system that ensures that sales are converted into timely receipts, which generate investment capacity and business growth.

 

Charging is never a hostile act on the customer. The rules are defined contractually between the parties and must be supported by information systems that create healthy routines between customer and supplier.

Still, we know that charging can be a complex and touchy task that requires special care to be carried out quickly and successfully. In order to this, anticipating and preventing non-compliance situations, as well as adequately monitoring and accompanying customers is crucial, maintaining the best relationship.

 

If the pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of organizations, this process must have one of the priority focuses on charges. CRM, an old acquaintance of the sales teams, is fundamental, yet, scarce to embrace the entire sales cycle up to charges. It is critical today that it is fully integrated, for example, with treasury, current accounts, among other modules of the organization’s ERP.

 

Nowadays, and even more so when most companies have their employees in home office, information should be centralized and available, in layers, to everyone, through access profiles or permissions. Examples of this are: amounts, products and services contracted, payments due dates, and other information agreed on the sale.

Digitization should also centralize all information and interactions, so far dispersed, such as records of phone calls, payment date notice letter/email, sent SMS, record of payment commitments (regularization forecast), follow-up contacts and integration with information collection services such as Iberinform, or automatic payment notice and internal alerts.

 

The information in the system, fully integrated and accessible, has to allow a simple and clear overview, which allows to have an evident perspective on the situation of each client. We are obviously talking about dashboards. A tool that allows sales teams, the financial department and the various directions of an organization to have, according to the indicators that most interest them, updated information by the minute, anytime, anywhere.

 

A charging dashboard allows intuitive viewing of indicators such as daily amount received, forecast of receipts, amount of balances per customer, amount outstanding, amount due, amount overdue, top 20 debtors, monthly comparison, among others.

But it is not a closed solution. We live in the era of customization and, on the contrary, it can and must be shaped according to the needs and interests of each organization and, within each company, according to what is convenient for each department.

 

An efficient charges system, supported by technological solutions, it’s for that reason the best ally of a company’s financial liquidity, but also of the best customer-supplier relations, avoiding mismatches and leveraging the existing commercial relationship based on the trust generated.