Mercantile Credits and Collections (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1919 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II FUNCTIONS OF THE CREDIT MAN It is not sufficient for the credit man to merely 0 K the order of a concern rated AA Al and turn down orders of buyers with merely medium or poor rating; an office boy or clerk could exercise that function. The credit man must not only get all the available reliable information that he can concerning a customer, but should also make an effort to turn an order from a poorly rated concern into a good order by obtaining security, or by giving advice to the customer or in any other way that he can. His position is one of trust and responsibility, and in many respects his responsibility is greater than that of a banker. The banker is very frequently in a position to obtain collateral or real estate security; he has the advantage of seeing a borrower's checking account, and is also in position to require a written, definite, concrete, unconditional obligation of the borrower before parting with value. On the other hand, a credit man who is safeguarding the property and investments of his employer usually is furnished with nothing but the order of a buyer, which may be only verbal, but even if written is usually unsecured, and there is no definite, concrete obligation to pay on a certain date, other than a sort of general understanding on the part of the buyer of what the terms of the seller may be. Often a credit man must approve or reject such an order on very short notice, and has but a limited time to investigate the buyer's standing, and seldom has the opportunity of analyzing a buyer's personal characteristics from personal contact, an advantage, for instance, which a banker often has. Notwithstanding these facts, it is not the function of a credit man to undertake to be a prophet or take a chance on some buyer. The fu...