Case study: CompUSA and GETPAID strategic receivables management. (Advertisement).(Brief Article)

According to David Miller, Director of Operations for Financial Services at CompUSA, the decision to implement an automated solution for receivables management rested primarily on the need for a more efficient method of managing their high volume of transactions. "We wanted to reduce our DSO," states David. 'The challenge, however, was that we have many accounts with small dollar amounts and simply did not have the resources to contact everyone; we needed an automation tool."

"The other problem we had was that we use two different AIR systems," adds David. "GETPAID literally combines the information from these two systems so we are working from a single system. With GETPAID, the collection team spends less time going back and forth gathering information, prioritizing and scheduling. This is all being done for us using standardized strategies that we built into the GETPAID system."

EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

After just six months of use, the team at CompUSA has had great success. "Our DSO has already decreased by 13 percent and past due AIR over 30 days is down by 72 percent," comments David. 'The collection team has really embraced the system and is happy with the results they are getting."

By contacting ten times as many customers on a daily basis, the team at CompUSA has been able to better manage their collections. They have developed strategies to standardize the process which includes automatic faxing of reminder notices. By being proactive, the team not only receives payments sooner, but also hears about disputes more quickly. "The reminder notice will prompt somebody to call us about a dispute or a return. This means that we can start to fix the problem in the early stages," explains David. "Previously, ninety days could go by before we would hear from the customer: this is no longer the ease."

After several months of use, CETPAID representatives visited CompUSA for three days of in-depth evaluation of system performance, results and usage. Throughout this process, strategies were modified and follow-up training was conducted. "The GETPAID Post Implementation Review was helpful," states David. 'Representatives from GETPAID worked with us to measure the effectiveness of our strategies and gave recommendations. We tweaked our strategies a little bit and it has helped us strengthen our overall approach."

RETURN ON INVESTMENT