Getting payment out of the state is an extreme challenge for creditors at the best of times. But those creditors dealing with public schools as debtor should be even more cautious.
This is in light of the case of BASTIAN FINANCIAL SERVICES (PTY) LTD v GENERAL HENDRIK SCHOEMAN PRIMARY SCHOOL (SCA), the judgment of which was delivered in May 2008 by the Supreme Court of Appeal, the highest court in the country on non-constitutional issues . While there is a minority judge, Hurt JA, who decided that the state …

An article from Frank Knight at Debtsource :
Companies differentiate themselves from their competitors through strategic drivers. Price, quality, product and service are the usual candidates companies focus on to beat the opposition. Credit as a competitive advantage usually doesn’t make it to the agenda of the strategy session. But, is there more to credit than meets the eye, and can credit indeed be considered a competitive advantage?
In the world of consumer credit, credit as a competitive advantage is a very well established practice. Some of South Africa’s largest retailers do …

Bentley Credit Control (Pty) Ltd, in line with their efforts to offer clients the complete debt collection and credit management solution have added a new service to their range of client services, outsourced credit management.
Tom Peters, the management guru, has said “Do what you do best and outsource the rest”.
In the modern economy outsourcing has become of one of the tools of choice of progressive companies wanting to leverage themselves to a more profitable and better service. Outsourcing is utilised by multinationals corporations down to small businesses to ensure better …

Bentley Credit Control (Pty) Ltd has announced that it is offering professional credit management consulting. Starting with an audit on your company’s credit control department. From this audit they will prepare a full report on the status of your credit management department together with recommendations on what improvements and options can be implemented to improve your performance. Many companies are not setting up there credit management systems and credit policies in a way to optimise who they are granting credit to and how they are collecting it. Bentley Credit Control’s …

One of the major changes that is proposed to be introduced in the Companies Bill, is the introduction of “Business Rescue”, in terms of Chapter 6, modeled on the US Chapter 11 insolvency provisions.
What this will allow, once it is passed into law, is that businesses in financial difficulties or under threat of liquidation can apply (or other interested parties such as employees or creditors) to court to have such a company placed under a business rescue plan.
These business rescue proceedings will give the company a moratorium against legal action …

 
I had a call from a creditor today with a debt of over a hundred thousand rand from a company which has apparently just made an application to go into liquidation. I was asked the inevitable question of whether we could hold the directors personally liable and what they could do to recover the debt.

I won’t burden you in dealing with the difficulties of obtaining the personal liability of a director here, but it suffices to say that this, in most cases, is grabbing at straws unless you have a …

One of our clients found out today that they are the victim of a fraud involving credit, for almost half a million rand.
We would like to take this opportunity to warn all credit grantors of this type of fraud and warn them to be vigilant. We warned of this crime here and Credit Guarantee in their November 2007 edition of their magazine Credit Notes, in fact warned against this fraud with a very similar example of what happened to one of their clients.
Modus Operandi of Credit Fraudster

You will receive a …

What is a credit policy?
It is the “rules of engagement” relating to the granting and maintenance of credit within a particular company. A policy is a general course of action developed for recurring situations, designed to achieve established objectives.
Many companies have informal and at times varying and inconsistent credit policies because these policies are not formalised in a written document or if they are, that document is sitting in the credit manager’s filing cabinet never to see the light of day.
It is strongly recommended that the credit policy of the …

The laws and landscape of credit management have changed a great deal in the last year, particularly with the introduction of the National Credit Act. Is your credit department up to date with the law and requirements of credit management?
The seminar will be an overview for Commercial Creditors presented by Bentley Credit Control (Pty) Ltd.
This is a one day seminar in Cape Town to be held on the 21st September 2007 and Port Elizabeth on the 11th October 2007, at 8.30am for 9am. It is aimed at commercial creditors (businesses …

I was advised by somebody who recently attended a human resources seminar on remuneration that it was mooted at the seminar that the introduction of the National Credit Act would result in increased salaries for credit managers and other credit control staff.
While there are a number of factors which could affect salaries in credit management, the thinking was that with companies having to ensure that they comply with the National Credit Act, the task of credit management has become a more specialised field and that more companies would separate out …