Accelerating Cash Flow through every stage of the recovery process!

Protecting Your Assets!

Our management team has been working on a number of initiatives in recent months.  As a result, we have re-branded our Professional Services Group to the Asset Recovery Group. 

 

The Asset Recovery Group is the division of Receivables Control that creates value from under-performing assets.  Most often, the assets we focus on are accounts receivable.  We have teams of people dedicated to surrounding even the most neglected and troublesome accounts receivable and maximizing the cash return for our clients.   

 

The Asset Recovery Group assists lenders, trustees, turnaround professionals, and owners of troubled companies.  When these parties have a problem or crisis to deal with, that's when we mobilize.  With as little as a 24 hour notice, we have professionals that go on-site to troubled companies and quickly begin the process of maximizing the value of the accounts receivable assets.  Time is money, as dilution quickly robs asset owners of the cash value of their accounts receivable.  

 

The solutions we provide range from a contingent based program where we are paid on performance to maximize the recovery of the accounts receivable; or we can provide a lender or business owner cash by purchasing their accounts receivable.  I encourage you to read the case study by Kurt Huizinga in this month's newsletter.  It's a great example of a highlight the Asset Recovery Group had in a recent bankruptcy case.  

 

Also in this month's issue, Kelly Cronan takes a look back in time as he celebrates 25 years with Receivables Control.  I think Kelly has found truth in the old saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same!"

 

Lastly, I would like to say thank you to our clients.  All of us appreciate the opportunity to partner with you regarding your accounts receivable needs.     

 

Mike Zwach is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Receivables Control.  Contact Mike at 763 315 9697 or email him at mzwach@rccmn.com.

Case Study:  Asset Recovery Group

Recovering receivables in bankruptcy 

We hear daily from banks and turnaround professionals that they are seeing more and more of their customers having problems collecting accounts receivable.  This causes those customers to pay back their banks/vendors very slowly and in some cases, not at all. 

When clients call to alert us to this type of issue, there are a number of things we can do to help.  Often, with a review of the aging, we can begin to identify issues impacting their customer's cash flow.  If we are involved early enough, we can help solve problems proactively.

Let me share some highlights from a recent case a bank client referred us to when their customer in the commercial lighting industry went bankrupt:  

Problem:

• Our bank client had extended a sizable credit line to a commercial lighting company.   The lighting company had problems collecting their accounts receivable and was forced to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy after the bank called its loan due.
• When the lighting company filed bankruptcy, they had $5 million in accounts receivable.  The lighting company had walked off some jobs leaving a number of their projects partially completed.   To say the accounts receivable were a challenge, would have been an understatement!

Next Steps: 

 Solution:  

• We surrounded the portfolio, working the accounts daily.  In addition to immediately "jump starting" the collection effort that was previously stalled, Receivables Control filed liens on several of the projects to protect the lighting company's lien rights.
   
• We recovered 64% of the accounts receivable.  Better yet, 95% of those dollars were recovered without the use of litigation.  Collecting so much money without filing suit is the key to maximizing the return on a portfolio.  Non-litigation recoveries are a fraction of the cost of litigation and non-litigation recoveries turn much more quickly!
   
• Due to the high recoveries, the Estate was able to generate payments to fully satisfy the secured creditors and a portion of the unsecured creditors' debt.

When you face the challenge of having to liquidate a difficult receivables portfolio, I would urge you to take a moment and visit with us.  Time is of the essence and a misstep can cost you many thousands of dollars.  When it comes to liquidating the receivables of a troubled company, we have "been there and done that".  Given our vast experience, we provide you with valuable insight and solutions. 

Kurt Huizinga is the Director of the Asset Recovery Group and has 25 years of experience working for businesses, lenders, consultants and trustees.

From the front line:  One thing that is more important than technology.

This year marks my 25th year with Receivables Control. 
I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the technological advances during the previous quarter century.  Here's my tribute to just a few of those things that have gone to the scrapheap of history:

• Burned in my memory is a vision of pink "While You Were Out" message pads.   Voice mail didn't exist, so these were a lifeline for a collector!  I remember having competitions with other collectors to see who had the most message slips when we returned from lunch. 
• Green screens.  Chances are if your co-workers are in their 20's, they have never seen a "green" computer screen.  For those of you 20-somethings reading this, I am not talking about an earth friendly computer.  Ask your more senior co-workers what staring at a green computer screen did for their vision!
• Green-bar paper (this too has nothing to do with recycling).  Remember when an accounts receivable aging printed out at the central printing hub in your company and was printed on gigantic green-bar paper?  Ah, the good old days, reviewing an aging, highlighting problem customers and writing collection notes directly on the aging!
• Of course green-bar paper and tractor feed paper were used in one of those things called a dot matrix printer.  I often see these dinosaurs at car rental agencies.
• Do you remember when fax machines printed on thermal laser paper?  The thermal paper fax had to be photocopied because the thermal paper disintegrated over time!
• Do you remember when a photo copier was just that, a photo copier?  Just think, we now scan, fax, print, copy and a do a billion other things on a machine 10 times smaller than an old copier that was capable of producing a single copy every 20 seconds.
• Remember 4 or 5 button phones?  The light at the bottom of the phone lit up if a line was in use.  You had to wait to use the phone if all the lines were being used!
• Are you old enough to remember ledger cards?  Back before all the fancy automation of today, I had the good fortune to make collection calls from ledger cards.  We hand wrote notes on the cards and used a tickler file to schedule call backs! 

It's fun telling youngsters what they missed.  Having said that, I really don't long for the old days!  I can't exist without all of my "I" devices and we live in an age where instead of having to send private detectives out to find people, we can simply Google someone or their business and find them in an instant.   

Technology helps us in countless ways; however, in the collection industry, there is one constant.  You still need a human being to make personal contact with someone about an unpaid invoice.  There really isn't a replacement for someone skilled in using all the new technology who is savvy enough to be tuned into how to set aside debtor excuses and press to get your account paid in full!  All this great technology still needs a true collection professional to interpret the information and to use it to our client's advantage.        

Here's to all the technology that helps us. I am looking forward to what the next 25 years brings!

Kelly Cronan is the Vice President of Collection Operations.  Kelly can be reached at 763 315 9660 and his email is kcronan@rccmn.com.

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Industry

Results 

The Commercial Collection Agency Association released 4th quarter placement results for 2013.

For the twelve month period ending December 2013, when compared to the twelve months ending December 2012, gross dollars placed to collection declined more than 11%. The average size of accounts referred to collection remained unchanged at $2,000.

B2B collection placements have fallen below 2007 levels.   

Associate Spotlight 

Jim Mlenek was named the Receivables Control "Spark Plug" award winner for January 2014. The Spark Plug Award is given to an employee for outstanding achievement.  In January, Jim exceeded his monthly collection quota by 5.85 days!  Jim is an Advanced Account Adviser and has been with Receivables Control since 2006.

In February 2014, Randy Johnson was named the "Spark Plug" award winner.   Randy was recognized for his many contributions to our administrative and trust accounting departments and has been with Receivables Control since 1998.     

Receivables Control

7373 Kirkwood Ct,

Suite 200,

Maple Grove, MN 55369

763 315 9600

www.RCCmn.com