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ACCA FM知识点：加快应收账款收款的方法

文章来源：ACCA官网

发布时间：2021-11-04 11:26

阅读：799次

财务管理学习指南的C2d部分指出，学生应该能够“讨论、应用和评估相关技术在应收账款管理中的使用”，然后在六个小节中给出了所需内容的进一步细节。本文介绍加快应收账款收款的方法。

Methods of speeding up cash collection from accounts receivable

Two key methods of speeding up cash collection from accounts receivable are using factoring and using early settlement discounts.Students should be conversant with these methods and their advantages and disadvantages.

Furthermore,a common exam question requires students to evaluate,in‘$’terms,the net benefit or cost of a proposed new debt collection policy.All of these areas are covered in the aforementioned‘Receivables collection’technical article.

Additionally,a question(potentially a multiple-choice question)could require the calculation of the percentage cost of offering an early settlement discount.This is best explained through an example.

Example

A company offers its customers 30 days credit but,at present,customers are taking an average of 41 days credit.In order to speed up cash collection,the company is considering introducing a 1%discount for payment within 10 days.The company finances its working capital requirement using an overdraft at an annual cost of 9%.

Required–Calculate the annual cost of offering the discount and evaluate whether or not the discount should be offered.

Solution

Let us assume a customer has purchased goods and has been invoiced$100.If the customer takes the discount,then the company will receive$99 in 10 days rather than$100 in 41 days.This is like the company borrowing$99 from the customer for 31 days(41–10)and paying$1 interest.Therefore,the 31-day interest rate is 1/99 x 100%.This needs to be compounded up to an annual rate in the following way:

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Therefore,the annual cost of offering the discount can be said to be 12.6%.

If the discount is not offered,the company will be borrowing more on its overdraft while it waits for the customer to pay.

As the cost of borrowing on the overdraft is only 9%,the discount proposed is more costly and should not be offered.

Please note how the 30 days credit offered is not relevant in the calculations.Such additional information,which is not required,can be given in questions,especially multiple-choice questions where it is called a distractor.The use of distractors is a good way of testing who is really certain and confident in their knowledge.

The calculations above have been carried out from the point of view of the supplier.A question could also look at the same issue from the point of view of the customer and ask for a calculation of the customer’s cost of refusing the discount.

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Students should note that:

The customer’s cost of refusing the discount=the supplier’s cost of offering the discount

Hence,in the above example,if a customer were to refuse the discount,the cost to it would also be 12.6%.If the customer is to accept the discount,then this will often require it to borrow extra funds in the form of an overdraft in order to make the early payment.We can assume that the customer’s overdraft rate is the same as the supplier’s rate of 9%.This is a reasonable assumption,as if both companies are operating in the same economy their overdraft rates are likely to be similar.

Therefore,the customer has a choice of refusing the discount at a cost of 12.6%or accepting the discount at a cost of 9%.Hence,the discount is attractive and should be accepted.

The above calculations have demonstrated a key problem with settlement discounts.As in this example,if the discount is attractive to the customer it may well be too costly to the supplier.It is also the case that a discount which is attractive to a supplier may well be too costly for the customer.

The formula to remember for calculating the cost of offering or refusing a discount is:

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