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In business, it’s a sad but true fact. Many profitable companies fail because they cannot meet their commitments with readily available funds and failure to control credit is the prime cause of this situation.

As we all know, offering credit terms is a common and often necessary practice designed to allow customers and clients to defer payment for goods and services. If you’ve ever considered offering credit terms to your customers but didn’t like the thought of putting your business on the line here’s a step by step guide for doing it right.

Recognize the Effects of Bad Debt - Ensure everyone within your company understands the consequences of bad debt. Stress the reduced bottom line profits and what it would actually take in additional sales to generate those profits back. Don’t forget to communicate the resources involved in recovering bad debts too. The time, energy and effort it requires and how it may lead to difficult relations and the loss of customers long term.

Introduce a Policy - Make it clear cut! Focus on both duration and amount of credit. Put it in writing and be sure to circulate it to anybody who may potential issue credit at your orgnaization. Communicate any changes internally & externally immediately.

Assign Responsibility - Ensure that one senior person is tasked with the responsibility of negotiating, granting and supervising credit and its collection. Ensure that by exercising their authority the selected individual does not detract from the hard earned relationships they may have established (for example try to avoid using sales staff)

Assess Risk - Have a well thought through procedure as to how you assess and impose credit risks for new and existing customers and clients. Resist the temptation to offer credit based on the potential turnover volume a client can achieve. Definitely don’t forget to consult independent sources of information before increasing or establishing credit facilities. Good credible sources include credit agencies, ratings organizations and trade/bank references.

Review your Terms of Sale - If you are serious about credit control, don’t be afraid of telling your customers your terms. Re-examine all invoices, price-lists, quotations and other documents. Make sure your terms are clearly stated and in line with your current policies.

Monitor your Customers - Systematically review the financial standing of all your customers - especially when business shows a sudden increase. Its always worth comforting yourself in the fact that any increase in business is attributed to your wonderful product, service or sales staff and not because your competitor is refusing to supply because of bad debt.

Look at your Invoicing and Statement Process - Look again at the interval between the supply of goods and services and the submission of invoices. Can the process be speeded up? Remember, the date on which a customer receives an invoice or statement has a critical impact on when they make payment.

Start a Collection Procedure - Introduce a collection timetable and systematically follow it. Be politely firm and always record details of all contact during your collection routine.

Follow these steps and you’ll reward those customers who genuinely appreciate and respect your credit practices and procedures. Moreover, you’ll eliminate those that seek to use your funds to finance their business.

To better serve the Hispanic community in the US and Latin America, inFlow have launched a Spanish language version of its inventory management software and website. You can now learn about inFlow “en espanol” by visiting http://www.inflowinventory.com/ES

The new, user friendly web site provides visitors the opportunity to learn about inFlow and download our software in Spanish. By translating the software and launching a Spanish website we hope to extend our commitment to better serve the Latino community.

Providing free, easy to use inventory management software to Spanish speaking businesses has been one of our objectives for some time. Requests from the Latino Community (in the US and Latin America) for a Spanish language solution have been coming thick and fast ever since we launched.

Talih Safadi, owner of Global Negocios 2008 recently downloaded inFlow and typifies our growing Latin American customer base. Determined to optimize his business, work smarter and serve his customers better he found inFlow just what he was looking for.

“inFlow is perfect for my sports apparel distribution and retail business. I found it incredibly easy to use and implementing it was a breeze. My business in Venezuela has definitely benefited since we installed the software. In fact, I’m so impressed I just installed inFlow at my company in Ecuador too”

Download a version of inFlow in Spanish HERE

For some organizations in South Africa, World Cup fever may have meant a slow down in productivity as the host nation and its people enjoys a month long, once in a lifetime experience. But for one company in Gauteng (the smallest, most populous province in the country) things have never been busier!

Dev 9, a small customized software & web development company and recent addition to the inFlow reseller community is celebrating a big win. An order to supply a leading pharmaceutical company with inFlow software, implementation and support services.

The story began earlier this year when Craig Robinson, Managing Director of Dev 9 was approached by a client looking for an inventory management software solution. Scouring the market for options he struggled to find a local solution he felt happy recommending.

As a software developer himself (Dev 9 designs and sells its own financial services software) Craig has an eye for knowing what well designed, intuitive and user friendly software should look like. So he set about finding a program that delivered the best possible customer experience at a fair and reasonable price. When he discovered inFlow, he knew he had found just what he was looking for – an opportunity to expand his business.

“inFlow is a superb product and the price point is amazing! Its much more affordable than the competition offer here in South Africa” After joining the inFlow reseller community, Dev 9 immediately started to reap the rewards.  Focusing on the needs of Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria area, Dev 9 was perfectly positioned when Sanofi Aventis came calling, seeking a quality but affordable cost inventory management solution.

Sanofi, a leading pharmaceutical company in South Africa is part of one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. With locations in 100 countries it employs around 11,000 scientists and 100,000 employees that work to meet the needs of healthcare professionals and their patients globally.

In the midst of organizing implementation with his new client, Craig said last week “Its been a fantastic
experience working with inFlow so far. I’m really excited about working together to capitalize on the demand here in South Africa”

Congratulations to Craig and his team at Dev 9. The local support and expertise you bring inFlow customers in the Rainbow Nation is greatly appreciated.

To find out more about how to join the inFlow reseller contact us here

As many of our customers in Canada will already be acutely aware the Canadian Government has approved a change in the manner that businesses in British Columbia and Ontario tax their customers and if you’re buying or selling to individuals in these provinces you may be affected.

You may have heard of the coming “Harmonized Tax” which is also already in effect in other parts of the country. It is essentially a combination of the provincial tax which taxes the total of your principal sale. Although the HST comes into effect on July 1, 2010 in both British Columbia and Ontario, it is important to consider changes you will need to make now, especially if you’re business tends to pre-sell to its customers (for example a painter who is pre-booking services to occur after the July 1st deadline).

What sales tax you pay on an order is determined by where your customer is and not where your business is located. Please visit the Canadian Government website for further (and more specific) information regarding how to change your taxation on sales orders etc. at this address: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/hrmnztn/pblctns-eng.html#transitionalrules

As to a basic overview of the tax changes, sales or services sold between May 1 and July 1, 2010 will need to be reported to the government by the business doing the selling (when completing taxes) however whether your customer is charged according to the new or old tax scheme depends on a few factors.

Generally speaking, services and payments rendered before July 1st are subject to the previous taxing scheme while services rendered and paid for after the deadline should be charged according to the new scheme.

If you are having trouble determining whether your customer should be charged HST you might try using the chart below. In addition (and as mentioned above) please visit the Government website for more information and to assess your business.

Canada Revenue Agency. GI-056 Ontario and Britiansition to the Harmonized Sales Tax-Services. Canada Revenue Agency Website. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/gi/gi-…. Published January, 2010. Accessed May 12, 2010.

Now that you have an understanding of the changes in the taxing system the easiest way to make changes to your inFlow setup is to enter an additional taxing scheme via the Company settings in the Main Menu.

1. Click Main Menu > Settings > General Settings
2. Select the “Pricing & Tax” window and click the “Edit Taxing Schemes” window.
3. The Taxing Schemes Window will pop up, allowing you to create a new taxing scheme

4. To enter the new tax simple type in the fields provided. In the case of HST in Ontario you would enter your information as follows:

As you can see from the example above, the previous taxing scheme had 5% GST and 8% PST. The two taxes were charged together however listed separately as some products (for instance many services) were not charged PST.

With the new HST taxing scheme, we find that there is only a primary tax listed and since there is no information in the secondary tax column, inFlow will not show a secondary tax (as evident from the example at right).

You can make the sales process easier by setting your default taxing scheme to whichever scheme you find you’re using most often (i.e. if you do a lot of presales you may want to switch your default now instead of waiting until July 1).

One final item to keep in mind: product tax information will override your company defaults so be sure to pay extra attention to your product settings and visit the revenue Canada for a comprehensive overview of how this change will effect your business.

If you sell products online or offline, you might be familiar with this all-too-common customer story:
1 ) Maria wants the product you sell.
2 )  She finds you through Google, eBay, or a friend’s recommendation.
3 )  She buys your product.  You do everything right and she loves your customer service.
4 )  In 2-3 months, Maria completely forgets that you exist.  Next time she wants a similar product you carry, she finds your competitor instead.

The best way to convert this into a happy ending is also one of the simplest.  Send updates through email.  Here’s the alternate ending:
4 )  When making the sale, you ask Maria if she’d like to get updates on new products and discounts through email.  You promise to email her a coupon for 10% off her next purchase.  She’s happy enough with your company that she gives you permission.
5 )  Once a month or so, you send relevant updates about new products or sales.
6 )  Three months later, Maria sees your email and thinks that she could use something in red to go with her original purchase, so she buys another.
7 )  Six months later, Maria sees a new product that you announced through email and decides to buy one of those too.
8 )  And they live happily ever after.

Send your happy customers email updates to remind them about your company once in a while and introduce new products or discounts.  This is one of the most effective ways to increase sales without spending a fortune on marketing.