DSO reductions, time savings and risk reduction

Marcel van Loveren | Credit Manager | YoungCapital

Marcel van Loveren, Credit Manager at YoungCapital drops right in: “Imagine not having an action list or workflow, how do you start your day as a accounts receivable manager?” Marcel has been working at YoungCapital for three years. On his first day at work, Marcel was introduced to CreditDevice’s products. The Credit Management Software and the credit information module had been delivered a few days before he arrived. “The days of the card box are fortunately far behind us. When you look back on that now, you wonder how it could have gone well for all those years. Fortunately, we now have digital facilities for credit management. I am extremely happy with all those tech developments.”

Customer service 3.0

Developments are no stranger to Marcel, since he has been working at YoungCapital they have been following each other at lightning speed. “Turnover has more than tripled in three years, we have opened foreign branches and the Credit Management team has doubled. Growth takes time and money, which comes with flexibility. Our team has become more of a customer service department of which debtor management is a part. As customer service, we have an important signaling role, which demands flexibility from us.” Marcel explains: “The billing moment is the first contact moment with the customer after a deal is closed. During that first contact moment, we are the company’s business card; we hear and see all kinds of things. This ranges from incredibly positive signals to feedback on our administrative handling. It may happen, for example, that a customer is not satisfied and therefore does not pay his invoice. Or that the customer has payment problems. As customer service, we are better able to pick up on those signals and deal with them. So we really are an extension of the Sales team.”

Tour of YoungCapital

“In addition to working closely with sales, we also maintain direct contact with the rest of the organization. If you carry out accounts receivable management in the right way, you will be at the table with every department at least once: with sales, the back office and also with finance. By talking to everyone and understanding all the processes, you as accounts receivable manager can take a central role in the organization. As a result, people will come and get information from you.”

So Marcel is convinced that as an accounts receivable manager, you are always in the conversation. Whereas the traditional accounts receivable manager feels purely responsible for bringing in the money, the team at YoungCapital wants more. “As a customer service department, you automatically also have to deal with the quality of billing, complaint registration and handling and service delivery. You speak with prospects and are confronted with contractual agreements. We take a lot of work away from other departments because of this.

• “This is how you change from ‘caller for money,’ to a large, responsible department, and the work becomes increasingly dynamic.”

Automate

That you can work better together when you understand each other well comes as no surprise to anyone. But that you can make your own work easier by using process knowledge optimally is interesting, because how do you do that? “Actually you can see it this way,” says Marcel, “because you know the processes of sales, after-sales and administration, you know which steps a customer goes through. We monitor those steps and try to improve them. At the same time we try to make the Credit Management process seamless. It has to be right for the customer.”

Marcel: “If all processes fit together and that makes sense to the customer, then automation is a natural consequence.” By this he means the entire customer process from A to Z. “For example, new customers first go through a customer acceptance process. For this we use CreditDevice’s CreditInformation module, which, incidentally, is fully integrated with the Credit Management software. The traffic light lets sales know immediately whether doing business with a prospect is wise. If the light turns green, then the process can continue: the desired services can be purchased, hours can be recorded, and finally the invoice can be sent. Our customer service department only has to handle ‘outage’ requests. That saves an enormous amount of time.”

• “CreditDevice is not a supplier but a partner”

The Future of Credit Management

Depending on the customer size, customer type and information report from CreditDevice, the customer is assigned to a risk profile. The risk profile is applied in the Credit Management process and differs in tone-of-voice, as well as in turnaround time. “Because CreditDevice’s modules are integrated with each other, we find all customer and debtor information in one place. What data was obtained during the customer underwriting process, what limit goes with it and why was this risk profile assigned? All data that we consider during the dunning process. After all, we want to address our customers in the right tone. There is a world of difference in the form of address for business customers and private individuals, for example, but also with multinationals and self-employed workers, a different approach helps in maintaining customer relations in the best possible way.”

With private individuals and self-employed people, for example, offering the option of Online Payment (via e-mail or SMS) is very desirable, while a large proportion of large key accounts prefer to receive weekly account statements. “We can serve everyone at their beck and call and that is precisely what customer service stands for and the reason we are so happy with our current Credit Management solutions. Thanks to automation we now have the time for that; real contact with the customer and building and maintaining customer relationships.” Marcel expects that automation can be further expanded in the future: “If there are no particulars, then there is no reason to interrupt the Credit Management process. The smart system can then decide for itself whether the preset workflows can be run or should be scaled up to a higher risk profile.”

Report

Smart systems are nice for his team’s productivity, but also for management and the board. “It saves an awful lot of time that we no longer have to search for customer and debtor information. Everything is together in one system. In addition to ‘search saving,’ as we call it, the analysis solutions help us run reports. Even better: we have compiled the reports in advance so that the system itself – automatically – sends a new version of the report every week. We happy, management happy!”

Partners through thick and thin

YoungCapital deploys various modules of CreditDevice organization-wide. “This leads to DSO reduction, time savings and risk reduction,” says Marcel van Loveren. “Turnover has grown by over 400 million Euros in three years. Such growth requires flexibility and flexible partners. CreditDevice offers us the same degree of flexibility and grows with us over the years. That’s an important trait for a partner, because that’s how you arrive together at new, valuable solutions to improve Credit Management.” Marcel explains: “Those improvements can only happen by continuing to talk to each other, which is why we see CreditDevice not as a supplier, but as a partner.” “Because of the good relationship, cooperation and fast switching between YoungCapital and CreditDevice, it often feels like CreditDevice’s IT department is an extension of our own organization. CreditDevice thinks with us and facilitates where possible so that we can do our work as quickly and well as possible. CreditDevice is open to ideas but realistic about them. When I call I don’t get a ticket, but a familiar contact person on the phone. The personal contact always makes me feel very welcome.”