Fall Forecast — Are Policy Shifts About to Blow Through Your A/R?
As the weather cools and companies shift gears into the final quarter of the year, credit and collection professionals face more than just seasonal changes. This fall, the business climate is shaped by a combination of policy shifts, economic headwinds, and new...
Q4 Crunch Time: Can Your Credit Team Deliver Profits Before Year-End?
For decades, the credit department has carried a reputation as the “sales prevention” team — focused mainly on blocking bad deals rather than driving new business. But in today’s fast-moving commercial environment, credit teams are increasingly expected to show how...
Dear Crabby — My Customer Insists that Tariffs Justify Short-Pay
Dear Crabby, Over the past several months, several of my long-time customers have started short-paying invoices, claiming that new tariffs are cutting into their margins. One customer in particular reduced a $100,000 payment by $15,000, stating it was their way of...
Take the Poll – Will you allow credit policy exceptions for “strategic customers” in Q4?
As the calendar turns toward year-end, credit and collection professionals often find themselves in the hot seat. Sales is pushing to close last-minute deals, finance is watching cash flow like a hawk, and leadership is laser-focused on meeting...
Should Your Company Hop on the Cryptocurrency Bandwagon?
Cryptocurrency has evolved from a niche experiment into a mainstream financial tool, raising an important question for businesses: Should your company use cryptocurrency to pay its commercial obligations? As adoption grows among major corporations and startups alike,...
Paying Your Credit & Collection Experience Forward
Over the next several years, the commercial credit and collection industry will experience a significant generational shift. Thousands of seasoned professionals, many with 30, 40, or more years of experience, are preparing to retire. These individuals have weathered...
Hector the Collector – My Daughter Wants to Do High-End Asset Repossessions
Hi Everyone, I always enjoy receiving your emails, especially when they involve the next generation finding creative ways to apply what we do in the credit and collection world. A recent email came from a commercial collector here in the U.S. whose daughter is...
Take the Poll – It’s Friday at 3:00pm and your sales manager hands you an urgent order for $100K needing your approval by the end of the day from a long-term good customer with a credit limit of $65K. Do you:
This scenario is all too familiar for many credit professionals. End-of-week urgency, especially on a Friday afternoon, has become a pressure point where credit discipline and sales momentum can collide. While the customer may be reliable and the...
The Halfway Point: Are You on Track with Your Credit Goals?
July marks more than just the start of the second half of the year, it’s also a critical checkpoint for credit professionals. Are your credit goals for 2025 on track? Or have they quietly drifted off course while you were juggling approvals, collections, lack of...
Is Your DSO Taking It Easy at the Beach this Summer?
As the sun stays out longer and offices start to feel a little emptier, many credit professionals notice a familiar and unwelcome trend: Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) begins to climb. While the summer season brings vacations, barbecues, and long weekends, it also...
Dear Crabby — My Customer Slipped in a “DAP” Delivery Term on Their PO
Dear Crabby, I’m the credit manager at a gear manufacturing company and recently received a purchase order from our long-term Canadian customer. Everything seemed normal until I noticed the shipping term was listed as “DAP.” As I’ve never encountered this term on...
Take the Poll – How often do you perform economic stress tests on your A/R?
As we enter the second half of 2025, economic headwinds are swirling once again. From whispers of a mild recession to the continued unpredictability of global supply chains, credit professionals can no longer afford to rely solely on historical...
Tough Love in Credit Risk Management — Just Like Mom Taught Us!
Mother’s Day reminds us that real love isn’t about saying ‘yes’ to everything — it’s about knowing when to say ‘no’ for someone’s own good. In credit risk management, tough love isn’t just necessary, it’s the heart of protecting both customers and companies. Setting...
Seeking a Director of Global Credit Position? Your Resume Must Reflect a Stellar Experience!
If a credit risk manager is aiming for a Director of Global Credit role at a multinational company, the resume needs to do a lot more than just check boxes. It should tell a story that projects global leadership, strategic foresight, and deep operational experience....
Dear Crabby — Why Should I Tag Along with the Sales Manager?
Dear Crabby, I am the credit risk manager at a small manufacturing company that manufactures all kinds of industrial springs. I’ve been working here for about two years and overall, I have been working in credit and collections for over twenty years. Although I...
Take the Poll – What is your biggest concern regarding customer risk over the next 12 months?
As credit risk professionals, we're trained to make decisions based on patterns using financial metrics, payment histories, and macroeconomic indicators. But in today's environment, the patterns are breaking down. Many companies find themselves...
What Do an Easter Egg Hunt and Credit Risk Management Have in Common?
At first glance, Easter eggs — a symbol of fun, mystery, and childhood delight — seem to have little to do with the serious world of credit risk management. However, when we step back and ponder these two activities more deeply, intriguing similarities begin to...
How Can a Credit Manager Turn Their Department into a Profit Center?
One of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard over the years from credit risk managers is that they don’t feel appreciated for their hard work in trying to increase cash flow and minimize the risk of selling on credit. In fact, as time goes by, some credit...
Hector the Collector — Changing Course After 25 Years in Collections
Hi Everyone, As always, I greatly appreciate your emails, especially when they mention how someone would like to improve and expand their professional goals. One email came from a middle-aged collector at an agency here in the US regarding his employment. After 5...
Take the Poll – With tariffs in full swing, are you tightening credit on foreign and/or domestic customers?
When a broad tariff policy — like Donald Trump’s recent across-the-board tariffs — is implemented, it suddenly forces credit managers in the U.S. to navigate new challenges in evaluating credit risk on their international customers. For example,...
How the Sidelining of the CFPB Will Impact Businesses
It has certainly been quite the whirlwind over the past several weeks with many new changes in our regulatory agencies. One change that has hit close to my credit and collection home has to do with the sidelining of the Consumer Financial Protection...
Do You Check the Authenticity of Letters of Credit?
To be expected, as the use of AI continues to advance through the entire global business community, there is also an increase in the creation of forged Letters of Credit. A forged Letter of Credit (LC) is typically created to deceive a supplier into...
Dear Crabby — I’m Dealing with Multiple Collection Personality Disorder
Dear Crabby, I am the credit and collection manager at a small logistics company. I’ve been working here for about one year and as a small company, I find myself wearing several multi-ethnic hats that are making me slightly unbalanced. Let me explain. I am an older...
Take the Poll – As a Credit & Collection Professional, when should you get your sales representative involved in collecting a past due account?
As a credit and collection professional, getting your sales team, manager or representative involved in the collection of a past due account can range anywhere between successful to disastrous. Following below is a general guideline as to when it...
How Will Tariffs impact Commercial Claims?
I don't profess to be an economist. In fact, like many credit professionals, my focus is primarily on the credit and collection problems directly in front of me. However, in the back of my mind is the accumulation of all the news and opinions I’ve been hearing from...
Which Pathways to the C-Suite Should a Credit Manager Pursue?
Over the course of my credit and collection career, I’ve observed the careers of hundreds of credit professionals. Some may enter a client’s place of business as a high school graduate and slowly work their way up to becoming the credit and collection manager. Others...
Hector the Collector — When Debt Collection Calls Are Not Recorded
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector and as always, I greatly appreciate receiving many wonderful emails from readers asking for my thoughts and guidance. Last month I received a rather concerning email from one in-house collection manager, I’ll call Joe, who was confronted...
Take the Poll – As a Credit Professional, what is your biggest regret regarding your career in credit?
At a recent conference, I was invited into a group of other long-term credit professionals to discuss what we felt were some regrets in our long careers. Following below are the major ideas I took away from our discussion.Overlooking Relationship...
Will You Be Celebrating “Quitters Day” this Month?
I was talking with several relatives on New Year’s Day about my New Year’s resolutions and from their reaction, I guess my list seemed over the top. Since I like adventurous activities, which includes wall climbing, a few of them suggested...
Extending Credit to a Customer that Was Rejected by Credit Insurance
A client of mine was recently talking to me about one of their customers who had been covered under their credit insurance policy, but coverage was suddenly cancelled due to negative financial information that came to light. According to my client, they have been...
I Greatly Reduced DSO but My Year End Bonus Didn’t Reflect this Achievement
Dear Crabby, Hope you had a nice New Year holiday. I wish mine had been better -- I was in a bad mood. Let me explain. I am the new credit and collection manager at my company and started one year ago. In just one short year, I reduced our DSO from 75 days...
How the “January Effect” Impacts Credit & Collections
The "January Effect" is a well-known financial market phenomenon referring to a seasonal increase in stock prices during January, often attributed to year-end tax-loss selling, portfolio rebalancing, or increased market optimism. While it primarily impacts investment...
Take the Poll – Who at your company approves your credit & collection goals for the year?
As a credit risk management professional, aligning your credit and collection goals with the objectives of your organization is essential for a cohesive and effective approach. Depending on the company size and leadership hierarchy, here’s a general...
Happy Holidays From CMI 2024
https://youtu.be/71-qqxia6CA
Inviting a Stranger to Your Thanksgiving Dinner
One of the most heartwarming Thanksgiving stories is the one about Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton, often referred to as the "Thanksgiving Text Mix-Up." It’s an example of how unexpected friendships can begin and the spirit of Thanksgiving. In 2016, Wanda...
We Have a New Collector and His Name is Rover
About one year ago, one of our clients asked us to help them interview candidates to fill the position of in-house collector for their commercial claims. They had received over two hundred resumes and in reviewing them, there were about two dozen candidates...
Hector the Collector — How Do You Know If It’s Worth Suing Your Debtor?
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector and I hope you all had a nice Halloween holiday. It won’t be long now before we go from eating a lot of candy to chowing down on some delicious turkey for Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I continue to receive wonderful emails from many...
Take the Poll – If you were the newly hired Director of Global Credit, would you:
Newly hired executives often choose to fire existing team members and bring in people they have previously worked with for several reasons. Here are some of the key motivations behind why a new executive manager will remove the existing team....
The Legend of “Stingy Jack”
I can’t believe how fast the summer flew by! But here we are in October and the leaves are turning all shades of yellow, orange, and red before finally falling to the ground leaving a huge mess for me to rake up around the house. At the end of the month, it’ll...
Untangling a “Who’s on First” Collection Knot
If you’re a baby-boomer and older, there’s no doubt you’ve seen the "Who’s on First?” comedy skit between Bud Abbot & Lou Costello several times when you were growing up. They certainly brought out a lot of laughs with their silly antics. At least they did...
Dear Crabby — My Collector’s Speaking Style Makes Me Cringe
Dear Crabby, I’m the credit manager at a liquor wholesaler and have been at my current company about eight years. Liquor wholesale distribution means that we sell to retail liquor stores, mom and pop convenient stores, some smaller supermarket chains, and to other...
Take the Poll – In the current employment market, to what extent do the credentials CCE, CBA, CICP, or MBA help someone to advance in their credit related career?
Whenever I have been asked to participate with reviewing resumes for clients to fulfill a credit manager position, my eyes will always look for the credentials CCE, CBA, CICP, or MBA as a starting point. It lets me and the employer know that at...
When Young People Don’t Understand Money & Credit
As schools begin across the country, I was talking with a few acquaintances about their children, some of whom are still in high school and others who are beginning college. One parent mentioned that they have their child on a “tight leash” when it comes to money and...
A Credit Manager Forced to Work with One Hand Behind Her Back
In my many travels as a credit risk management consultant, I’d like to share an interesting collection situation that came across my desk. Several months ago, I was contacted by an Intellectual Property law firm which has been in business for several decades. Their...
Hector the Collector — Just How Far Should We Extend Empathy to a Debtor?
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector and I hope you all had a real nice summer. Mine was very nice but went by way too fast. Fortunately, in between the office and the beach, your emails kept me busy. Among the correspondence was one inquiry about how to deal with a debtor (owner...
Take the Poll – If you are an in-house or third-party collector, what is the most satisfying thing about your job?
I remember when I was just starting out as part of the CMI collection team (there were just two of us) and my portfolio of accounts contained mostly small balances. Fortunately, by nature of being small, they were relatively easy to collect. That...
Using AI to Fight Against Credit Card Fraud
A couple of months ago I received a letter from a performance ticket outlet letting me know that they incurred a data breach and that my personal information may have been compromised. The personal information not only included my name and basic contact details, but...
My Short List for Evaluating a Candidate’s Resume for Credit Manager
From time to time, I am asked to help a client evaluate candidates for their open credit and/or collection positions. I feel very fortunate when I am requested to do this because I believe it reflects a deep level of trust between my client and our firm, and...
Dear Crabby —The Owner’s Son Keeps Overriding My Credit Decisions
Dear Crabby, I’ve read your column for years but never thought I would be writing to you myself. But here I am with a problem and not sure how to handle it. I am the credit and collection manager at a small business that sells furniture to restaurants and bars. The...
Take the Poll – As a Credit Professional, which task takes up most of your weekly time?
When I first started out, I did a lot of collection work but as the years passed and the clients and claims increased, my collection experience supported the hiring, training, and managing of additional staff. For quite a long time, my weekly and...
