Small Business Advice - Improve Your Accounts Receivable Collection Cycle Now

Almost any small business can use advice on how to improve its collection cycle. The first line of defense against late payments is a complete invoice. Your bills should be accurate, detailed and easy to understand. If difficult to understand, then your client will need to call for additional information. That translates into "you have been added to their to-do list," which increases the time of your collection cycle. Include on each invoice:

• Your company's contact information: name, address, tax id number, phone and contact person

• The date the invoice was prepared

• The customer's name and address

• A description of the goods or services sold to the customer - itemize, if possible (An itemized bill is harder to contest.)

• The amount due, with sales tax amount broken out

• When the invoice is due

Once prepared, send invoices promptly. Another piece of small business advice is the longer you take to bill a customer the less likely you are to receive payment for the goods and services provided.

Many of my business mentoring clients are surprised to learn that the step requiring the most amount of time in the cash conversion process is the time it takes to collect on a customer account. The cash conversion process begins the moment they make contact with the customer, and ends when they have received and deposited payment from that customer; hopefully this cycle repeats itself each month.

The time it takes my business mentoring clients to collect their accounts receivable is measured by the average accounts receivable collection period. The average accounts receivable collection period is an important indicator for determining when their business will be paid for the goods and services it provides.

This simple calculation gives you a powerful tracking tool that helps you adjust your cash in-flow on an as-needed basis:

Step 1: Calculate your average collection period by dividing your total sales for the previous year by 365. This gives you your average daily sales volume.
(Total Sales / 365 Days = Average Daily Sales Volume)

Step 2: Then divide your average daily sales volume into your current accounts receivable balance to get the number of days it takes to collect a bill.
(Average Accounts Receivable Collection Period = Average Daily Sales Volume / Current Accounts Receivable Balance)

Now that you know your average accounts receivable collection period, you then need to interpret that number as it relates to your business by asking four important bookkeeping service questions.

Bookkeeping Service Question #1: Is your average accounts receivable collection period in line with the company's credit policy? If your credit terms provide your customers with 30 days to pay their bills, then you should expect that your average collection period will be somewhere around 30 days - maybe a little longer. If your average collection period is 60 days then you need to examine other factors that affect billing.

Bookkeeping Service Question #2: Are you billing your customers consistently? Look at your Accounts Receivable Aging Report, the report that summarizes all of your outstanding invoices by client and number of days outstanding. Are the outstanding invoices on that report related to products and services sold within the last 45 days, or are they related to products and services you provided three months ago and just got around to billing? Create a procedure to bill customers once a week or each time you have a completed sale.

Bookkeeping Service Question #3: Are you billing your customers effectively? Are your customers calling you with questions about your invoice? Perhaps you didn't have that important upfront conversation with your client about how you charge for your products and services. By having this conversation, confusion and anxiety over wondering if the customer is going to pay you can be eliminated.

Bookkeeping Service Question #4: Are you tracking overdue accounts and taking consistent action to collect past due accounts? Do you have an effective tool in place to track when an account comes due, and knowing who has paid their bills and who has not? When a customer's invoice goes past its due date, is there a procedure in place to follow-up with that customer? Sometimes sending customer statements and making friendly reminder calls is all it takes.

By answering these four basic questions, implementing a few bookkeeping service procedures and heeding this small business advice, you'll soon be running a fine-tuned collection machine.

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DIY Accounting Payroll Software Questions and Answers

HMRC will advise the new tax code change from 543 to 603 which was announced in May 2008 and the date the new tax code to be applied which is expected to be September 2008. The amended tax code is entered as a new tax code on the employee details tax amendments section of the payroll file and the tax reduction is then automated at the date the new tax code is applied.

The income tax deduction calculated by the DIY Accounting payroll package is different to the inland revenue CD Rom.

Small differences can occur because the DIY Accounting payroll system has in the past used the revenue manual tax tables whereas the inland revenue employers CD Rom use a percentage calculation. In fact the manual tables jump in pounds and tax tables can increase by four pounds between different look up rates which can create small differences.

In the current financial year many of the financial income tax and national insurance calculations have been changed in the DIY Accounting payroll calculations to a mathematical percentage basis. Differences can still occur where the subject of the calculation is rounded to ignore the pence.

All these differences are minor and immaterial and adjust themselves since tax is calculated on a cumulative basis. HMRC percentage calculations also differ from the calculations using paye look up tables for similar reasons.

Employee gross pay was entered and no national insurance contribution was calculated.

The national insurance contribution table applied is shown in the column to the left of the employees name on the payroll sheet and you will probably see the letter C when because this employee is of working age and not a second employment the national insurance table letter should be A. Check the date for both for this employee which may have been omitted or entered wrongly.

Income tax deducted for my employee who is on a normal tax code was much higher than normal.

The income tax code column to the left of the employees name on the payroll sheet may appear as zero which should show the tax code. To resolve the tax code check the employee starting date has been entered and the numerical value of the tax code in the employees details and the date that tax code should be applied.

When I try to enter wages on the payslips a dialogue box appears with the message that the payslip spreadsheet is protected.

No entries are required to the payslips file. All entries are automated from the payroll file and the protection prevents corruption of the formulae in the payslip file. The entry on the payslip file can be changed by entering the required gross pay on the payroll workbook and the payslip will automatically update itself from there as part of the paye system.

I cannot see any tabs at the bottom of the payroll software workbook.

After entering the employee details navigate to the month in which you wish to enter gross pay by clicking the tab buttons at the bottom of the excel spreadsheet. If you do not see any tabs at the bottom of the sheet you may not be viewing the full sheet. Click the square box at the top of the menu bar to view the full sheet and the tabs should then be visible.

When I open the payslips file I receive an error message saying read only, non repairable error has occurred.

This is likely to have been an interruption during the download process that has corrupted the payslip file. Download the payslip workbook again direct from the confirmation email sent to you after purchase.

We bought the up to 20 employee payroll package and now have 23 employees.

Make a second copy of the payroll software, saved into a separate folder and split the payroll into two parts. Perhaps use one package for one department and the other package for a different department or use one for existing employees and the other for new starters.

Do I purchase a new payroll software package each financial year or can the payroll software be updated for more than one year paye purposes.

The payroll software include that years tax rules to
enable the packages to automate the production of that year tax returns. Each year has new tax rules embedded and being on excel rather than a database then it is necessary to purchase a new package each year.

Does the payroll software automatically generate the amount payable to the inland revenue each month.

The payroll package automatically calculates the income tax and national insurance and collects the information on a paye payments schedule so you know exactly how much to pay each month. The paye calculations also complete all the revenue forms including the P35 annual employers return which is required when you file the paye information with the revenue at the end of the financial year.

The payslip workbook is not automatically updating from the payroll spreadsheet.

The payslip updates automatically and there are no calculations on the payslip file or links out of that file. The most likely cause is that the payslip file was renamed and has broken the links from the payroll file. If you have saved the file after breaking the links by renaming the solution is to download the payslips file again without changing the name.

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