Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes Christmas is an interesting time of year.

Some are shining in their successes and can't wait to tackle coming year after a well-earned holiday.

For others it can be sad, reflecting on year gone by all too fast. They had good intentions to make 2004 year when they were definitely going to lose weight, get fit, spend more time with family, improve their business etc. and yet it didn't turn out that way. They are burnt out by working too much, keeping too busy and not looking after themselves.

Goals were set, only to be broken because life got in way. It was much easier floating along with crowd.

Unfortunately if you float along, you could end up anywhere. And more often than not, crowd is heading in wrong direction.

The Final Word According to Henry Ford hardest work known to 'man' is…’thinking’.

Take time to think and plan so that this time next year you can happily trot off on your Christmas break knowing that you have succeeded in achieving goals you set for yourself…you have taken control of your life instead of life taking control of you.

The sense of satisfaction attained by setting goals and achieving them will boost your confidence and motivate you to strive even harder.

Planning, commitment and action will get you there.

Lorraine Pirihi is Australia's Personal Productivity Specialist and Leading Life Coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including "How to Survive and Thrive at Work!"

Reduce credit terms. Change credit terms you offer your customers. If you offer terms of net 45, reduce it to net 30. You might offer a discount of 1% if paid within 10 days else net due in 30 days. This is equivalent to 18 % annual interest and most businesses will take those terms.

Shorten invoice process. Bill your customers immediately. This is a big one. Many service organizations wait until end of month to tally billable hours and determine customer charges. Do not wait until end of month. This could reduce your day’s receivable by as much as 15 days right there. Email or fax your invoices to save another day or two (e.g. QuickBooks accounting software contains this feature).

Reduce billing errors. Most customers delay payments because of invoice errors. Customers won’t recognize invoice until it is corrected and may not even notify you, vendor, of error until you call for collection. Again, avoiding this delay in error and time will amount to cash savings.

Train Accounts Receivables personnel. Make sure that all personnel involved are training to understand performance metrics for their jobs. For example, a company will manage $500,000 in monthly A/R balances (that’s $6 Million a year!) using an A/R clerk who makes $30,000. But then supervisor uses nothing more than On-The-Job (OJT) training for clerk. Then CFO thinks that he or she (the CFO) is really managing money. But, in reality, that’s not case; clerk is managing money day-to-day. So shouldn’t A/R clerk receive enough training to manage such a significant amount? After all, it only takes a 6% change in A/R in one month to equal A/R clerk’s entire annual salary. Isn’t A/R savings worth a little extra time in training?

Maximizing Accounting Process. With Accounts Receivable department you should use each element of process to gain most benefit for your business. And with time-saving procedures set in place, you will let your efficiency work for you.

Grabbing Your Policy Goal

With well-defined processes and procedures in place, you will increase efficiency by reducing your Average Days Collection. And of course a reduction in Average Days Collection means your Accounts Receivable balance will also fall, creating more cash in cash on hand. And just like that we’re halfway to our $1,000,000 goal. All you have to do is grab it.

Next week, we will look at finding still another $250,000 in Sales function – which will give us $750,000 toward our goal of 1 million dollars in cash savings. So, again, not only do you aim to reap rewards of extra savings to your bottom line, but also see more cash in bank - $1,000,000 cash to be exact.