Declaring War on Receivables --Dickeson

It's not necessarily the fault of the CFO that accounts have drifted past normal collection periods. The real fault lies with our monthly general ledger accounting—our intelligence system. Those reports it gives us are artifacts—reconciliation of balance sheets—two weeks after the close of a month.

There isn't a single report that tells us of the aging of our accounts receivable. You have to dig it out by a separate, and somewhat sophisticated, formula. You may think sales are just peachy, that you're doing well—according to the income statement—but you're not doing well. Those rosy sales figures aren't really sales until the money is in the cash drawer.