外文翻译--关于组织应收账款管理战略方针：一些经验证据

原文：

A Strategic Approach on Organizing Accounts Receivable Management: Some

Empirical Evidence

1. Introduction

Firms rarely require immediate payment for their merchandise. For example, in the UK corporate sector more than 80% of daily business transactions are on credit terms and accounts receivable constitute one of the main assets on corporate balance sheets (35% of total assets) As soon as trade debtors settle their accounts, cash flows into the company. At the same time, however, new sales generate new accounts receivable. The level of debtors thus remains constant when sales figures are stable, while it grows as sales figures increase. Although firms extending trade credit heavily invest in accounts receivable, the resulting financial need is not the only reason why trade credit decisions merit more careful attention. This paper develops and discusses two additional considerations.

First, firms selling on credit open themselves to moral hazard. When exchange relations are subject to imperfect information, this uncertainty results in transaction costs. Sellers thus have incentives to develop organizational structures that reduce the transaction costs resulting from this asymmetric information problem. Both homemade planning and sales structuring as well as balanced product and market portfolios can reduce this uncertainty, while externalization of risk becomes attractive when these homemade institutions fail.

Second, vendors offering trade credit have to adopt a variety of new responsibilities: the decision whether or not to grant credit to a (new) customer, the assumption of credit-,administration- and collection-policies and the bearing of the credit risk involved. From a managerial point of view this means that the seller 1) finances the buyer’s inventory, 2) engages in additional accounting and collecting activities, 3) monitors the financial health of both existing and potential customers and 4) gets involved in assessing and bearing new risks. Not all credit management functions, however, have to be performed by the seller. Indeed, when extending trade credit is thought to add no real value to the firm, its management can be contracted to a third party.

A selling firm’s decision to extend trade credit thus also requires the seller to decide whether or not to integrate into managing accounts receivable. Moreover, when the seller decides to enter a market transaction, several organizational structures can be employed. In their paper, Mian and Smith (1992) examine the relationship between the functions to be performed in the credit-administration process and the decision whether or not to subcontract these functions to a third party specialist. In this paper, however, the extension of trade credit is looked upon from both a more strategic and a risk-oriented point of view. The strategic approach is based on the extensive financial management literature claiming that the extension of trade credit can become advantageous to the supplier, in which there will be a need for flexibility in managing accounts receivable. The risk-oriented point of view, on the other hand, is based upon those principles that deal with the moral hazard problem. Finally, the implications of these motivational theories are linked to the industrial organization literature on vertical integration.

Three types of outsourcing are considered. At first, the factoring contract has been chosen to operationalize the externalization of accounts receivable management, since factoring is the most comprehensive type of outsourcing a firm’s accounts receivable management. Next, we clearly isolate the decision to subcontract the administration process from the decision to subcontract the risks incurred, assuming that they are based on different decision processes with different decision variables. Indeed, we assume that both cost advantages and a need for flexibility in managing accounts receivable will cause integration of the firm’s credit administration. The assumption of credit risk, however, will not be delegated to a third party when the transaction can be performed in a stable and predictable environmental setting (inducing a low need for monitoring and control).

2. The Nature of Outsourcing Contracts

Before analyzing policy choices and their respective determinants, we first give a description of the basic governance structures studied.

2.1. FACTORING AND ITS EQUIVALENT

Factoring basically offers three types of services: 1) finance, 2) risk control and 3) sales ledger administration. However, not all factoring contracts provide this full array of services. Based upon the scope of his managerial needs the seller can decide on the extensiveness of the contract. The most important distinction between factoring contracts is that between recourse and non-recourse agreements. A non-recourse agreement implies that the factor makes the

credit-extension decision, monitors and collects the accounts receivable and bears the credit risk. Under a recourse agreement the firm selling on credit retains the risk of non-recovery of the debt. Moreover, when the contract provides financing, the factoring contract is called an advance-factoring contract. A full-factoring agreement then is a non-recourse agreement, providing financing for all credit sales (both national sales and export). The equivalents internalizing their accounts receivable management finance their accounts receivable out of general corporate credit and manage internally the credit-risk assessment, credit-granting, credit-collection and credit-risk bearing functions.

2.2. THE ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT CONTRACT

The companies using an administrative management contract are defined as those companies that use credit information agencies to assess the trade credit risks, to collect accounts receivable when they are due or ARF (Accounts Receivable Financing)-contracts and service contracts offered by a factor. Thus, although the administration of accounts receivable has been outsourced, the firm still bears the trade credit risk.

2.3. THE RISK MANAGEMENT CONTRACT

The risk management contract is defined as a contract that indemnifies firms against losses on uncollected accounts receivable but does not take care of the firm’s credit administration process. Examples of such third party specialists are e.g. credit insurance contracts and partial factoring agreements.

3.Determinants of Alternate Policies

The factoring contract has been chosen to operationalize the full externalization of accounts receivable management. Next, we assume that the decision to outsource this management is influenced by the need for flexibility in extending trade credit and collecting payments on the one hand and the existence of economies of scale and scope reducing the unit cost of management on the other. Further, such a need for flexibility and control is assumed to be induced by the existence of real motives for extending trade credit. Indeed, when these motives hold, trade credit contributes to the process of maximizing shareholder wealth, a traditional objective in financial management literature, and becomes a strategic asset that is not likely to be extended to a third party. Next, the effects of uncertainty and bounded rationality in managing accounts receivable are studied, assuming that the supplier’s risk increases as a result of uncertainty in the customer’s payment behavior and uncertainty in the supplier’s business environment. The less predict-able the customer’s payment behavior, the higher the uncertainty in the supplier’s financial needs, all other things being equal. Therefore, the assumption of the credit risk becomes less attractive whenever the customer’s payment behavior is hard to predict. In addition, two types of environmental uncertainty have been withheld: the possibility to control the customer’s payment behavior (based on the absence of information-asymmetry) and the possibility to spread the risks incurred. Therefore, trade credit administration is described as the process of monitoring and collecting the outstanding accounts receivable. Moreover, since one cannot bear the consequences of decisions controlled by a third party, it is reasonable to assume

that firms deciding to internalize the collection of their accounts receivable will also internalize the credit granting decision. The risk assumption includes the assumption of all responsibilities in case of late and/or bad payments.

3.1 THE DSO-RATE

Since in the traditional literature on accounts receivable management the average number of days’ sales outstanding (DSO) is often mentioned to be the primary reason for outsourcing, the DSO rate has been withheld for further analysis. Indeed, the pure financial theories on trade credit stress the fact that high DSO-rates increase the supplier’s financial needs, increasing the likelihood of outsourcing. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that when the firm has no accounts receivable (although it provides its customers with the opportunity to delay their payments), there won’t be any need for outsourcing its management. This results in the following hypothesis:

Firms with a higher average number of days’ sales outstanding are more likely to outsource their accounts receivable management.

3.2. COST ADVANTAGES

Economies of scale and scope are expected to affect the outsourcing decision. Indeed, the fixed costs associated with credit-risk assessment and monitoring and collection policies can be spread over a larger number of accounts as credit sales increase. Firms with higher credit sales are therefore expected to invest in more

specialized personnel, techniques and knowledge, enabling them to realize learning-effects.

3.3.NEED FOR FLEXIBILITY AND CONTROL: THE INCENTIVES FOR TRADE CREDIT EXTENSION

The more recent developments in accounts receivable management literature (e.g. Emery, 1988; Brick and Fung, 1984; Schwartz, 1974) all emphasize its potential strategic value which is usually translated into a set of motives causing trade credit extension. Among these we discern a pricing motive, an operating motive, a financ-ing and a tax-based motive and a transaction motive. In what follows, each of them is briefly discussed and translated into testable hypotheses.

3.3.1. The Pricing Motive

The pricing motive is extensively described in Schwartz and Whitcomb (1978, 1979) and is based on the idea that both market structures and legal arrangements often restrict a firm’s profitability by constraining price competition in the market. In such circumstances trade credit not only becomes an effective tool in creating hidden price-cuts; it can also be used to practice sub-rosa price discrimination (by extending different credit terms to different customers). This price-setting objective results in the following hypothesis:

Suppliers who use trade credit as a price setting variable are less likely to outsource their accounts receivable management.

3.3.2. The Operating Motive

In addition, the operating motive for the extension of trade credit assumes that firms with higher inventory storage costs can transfer these costs onto the buyer by extending trade credit. That way trade credit offers the opportunity to split up the inventory cost into an operational storage cost to be borne by the buyer and a financial opportunity cost induced by the payment delay offered by the seller.

Therefore, Firms, in particular those with seasonal sales figures, can have a strategic advantage in extending trade credit. This strategic potential, however, increases even more whenever the customer has a comparative advantage in storing the delivered goods, which is more likely to occur when he transforms these into finished, non-perishable products. This results in the following hypothesis:

Suppliers of semi-finished products with seasonal sales figures are less likely to outsource their accounts receivable management.

3.3.3. The Financial Motive

The finance-based models for the extension of trade credit as developed by Emery (1984, 1987, 1988), Schwartz (1974) and Chant and Walker (1988) argue that firms with ready access to additional financing will extend trade credit to firms facing higher financing costs or restricted financing options. That way, the

stronger and more liquid selling companies can help finance the growth of their smaller and more vulnerable customers, thereby enlarging and safeguarding their own future markets. Since these firms have incentives to act as a banker, they will be less inclined to outsource their control in managing accounts receivable. This results in the following hypothesis:

The more liquid suppliers are less likely to outsource their accounts receivable management.

3.3.4. The Tax-based Motive

Even in perfectly competitive financial markets with homogeneous interest rates, trade credit can act as a redistributor of wealth since high tax paying suppliers have a lower after-tax financing cost. That way, the tax-based models as introduced by Brick and Fung (1984a, 1984b) see trade credit as a redistributor of tax advantages between buyer and seller. They finally conclude that “ sellers with high effective tax rates will supply more trade credit and are therefore more likely to have a longer investment in accounts receivable”. Frank and Maksimovic (1995) follow this reasoning stating that the higher the supplier’s tax rate, the higher his comparative tax advantage will be and the more willing he will be to invest in trade credit. His lower after-tax financing cost induces the same incentives as discussed under the financing motive, resulting in the hypothesis that:

Suppliers who are in a higher tax-bracket are less likely to outsource their accounts receivable management.

Source: Greet· Asselbergh, A Strategic Approach on Organizing Accounts Receivable Management: Some Empirical Evidence. Journal of Management and Governance,1999(3):pp15-20

译文：

关于组织应收账款管理战略方针：一些经验证据

1． 简介

企业很少需要为他们的商品立即付款。例如，在英国企业界超过80%的日常业务交易还在信用期限中，应收账款成为构成公司资产负债表（总资产的35%）的主要资产之一。当有应收账款回收入公司的账户，形成现金流量流入公司，与此同时，又有新的销售产生新的应收账款。对债务人来说，当它的销售额增长债务水平却保持不变。虽然公司扩大贸易信贷、大量投资在应收帐款所造成的财政需要的不是唯一的原因，但贸易信贷决策更需要仔细注意。本文研究和讨论了两个额外问题。

首先是企业对赊销开发自己的道德风险承受能力。当交易关系受到不完全信息的影响，这种不确定性造成了交易成本。卖方因此鼓励发展组织结构产生的成本，降低了这个信息不对称的问题。这两种自制规划和销售结构平衡的产品和市场的投资组合可以减少上述的不确定性,而风险外化使得这种不确定性风险开始导致这些自制的机构失败。

第二，供应商在提供贸易信贷时会采用一系统新职能：在决定是否将贸易信贷提供给一个新的信贷客户，这涉及到信贷的管理和收集，信用以及信贷风险的承担。从管理的角度这意味着卖方必须做到1）了解买方的库存；2）从事额外的会计和收集活动；3）监督现有和潜在客户的财务状况；4）评估和承受新的信贷风险。但是并不是所有的信用管理职能都必须由卖方进行。事实上，当扩大贸易信贷被认为没有给公司带来真正的价值时，贸易信贷可以承包给第三方执行。

一个销售公司决定要扩大贸易信贷也要求卖方来决定是否融入应收账款管理。此外，当卖方决定进入市场交易时一些组织结构可以被采用。在米安和史密斯（1992）的论文中研究了必须在信贷管理过程中执行的职能，并决定是否将这些职能转包给第三方专家的关系。在本文中，扩展商业信用是更具战略性和风险导向性的观点。战略手段是基于广泛的财务管理文献，它们声称扩大贸易信贷对供应商有利，但其中需要有灵活的应收账款管理。另一方面，风险导向性则是基于这些原则处理道德风险问题。最后，这些激励理论联系在一起组成了垂直整合产业组织。有三种类型的外包会被考虑到。首先，由于保理业务是外包公司应收账款管理中最全面的类型，保理合同被选定为实施应收账款账户管理的具体化方式。接下来，我们清楚地区分决定转包分包所产生的风险管理过程，假设它们是以不同的决策变量和不同的决策过程为基础。事实上，我们认为在成本优势和再管理应收账款将造成该公司灵活管理贸易信用的需要。但是假设信用风险管理不委托于第三方时，交易可以在一个稳定和可预见的环境设定（包涵低需求的监测和控制）中执行。

2． 外包合同的性质

在分析选择和他们各自的决定因素之前，我们首先给出一个基本的治理结构的描述研究。

2.1保理业务及其等效功能

保理业务基本上提供了三种类型的服务：1）金融；2）风险控制；3）分账户销售管理。然而，并非所有的保理合同都提供这种全套服务。基于他们管理的需要，卖方可以决定合同范围。保理合同之间最重要的区别是协议有追索权和无追索权。无追索权的协议意味着当有因素使得信贷延期时，要监控并收集应收账款和承担信贷风险。根据协议，公司在追索赊销上保留了非债务回收风险。此外，当合同提供融资业务时，保理合同被称为事

前保理合同。全套保理合同是无追索权协议，为所有人提供信用销售融资（包括国际销售和出口）。其内在等值一般企业的应收账款财务账目管理、内部信用的风险评估和授信，信贷收集和信用风险承担的职能。

2.2行政管理合同

企业使用行政管理合同意味着那些企业使用信用信息机构以评估贸易信贷风险，在应收账款收取到期时提供的一个应收账款融资合同和服务合同。因此，虽然应收账款的管理已经外包，但企业仍带有贸易信贷风险。

2.3风险管理合同

风险管理合同是指合同中约定了没有考虑到该企业的信用管理过程服务而导致应收账款无法收回使企业遭受损失。这样的第三方专家的例子有：信贷保险合同和部分保理协议。

3.代替的决定因素

保理合同已被选定为实施应收账款管理的具体化形式。接下来，我们假定外包这种管理的决定是由对扩大贸易信贷和收集支付款项的灵活性的需要，另一方面是减少对其他单位成本管理存在范围经济的灵活性。此外，这种灵活性和控制需要是假设由贸易信贷延长的真正动机所致。事实上，当存在这些动机的约束，贸易信贷有助于为股东创造最大的财富，成为一个不太可能扩展到第三方的战略性资产。其次，对应收账款管理的不确定性和有限理性进行了研究。假设客户的付款行为及供应商的商业环境的不确定性会导致供应商的风险增加，则对客户支付行为的可确定性就越少，供应商财务需求的不确定性就越高，其他所有条件都相等。因此，每当客户的付款行为是难以确定时，对信用风险的假设就变

得不那么有吸引力。此外两种环境类型的不确定性已经扣除：控制客户支付行为（在信息不对称情况下）的可能性和扩大风险费用的可能性。因此，贸易信贷管理被描述为监测和收集应收未收账户的过程。此外，既然不能承担由第三方控制决定的后果，这就有理由假设企业决定其内在应收账款回收也将使得授信决策内部化。风险承担包括产所有责任以防产生推迟付款和坏账情况的假设。

3.1应收账款平均回收期

在传统文献中对应收账款平均回收期（DSO）已经做了进一步的分析研究，经常会有提到应收账款管理中的应收账款平均回收期是导致外包的首要因素。事实上，单纯的财务贸易信贷理论使得高平均回收期出现和供应商资金需求的增长。这增加了外包的可能性。此外，可以合理地假定，当企业没有应收账款（虽然给客户提供了延迟付款的机会）就不会有任何外部管理的需要。这个假设的结果主要表现为：具有较高的应收账款平均回收天数的企业更可能需要进行好自己的应收账款管理。

3.2成本优势

规模经济和范围经济预计将影响外包。事实上，当信用销售增加时信用风险评估和监测以及收款的固定费用也会增加。有较高信用销售的公司将投入更多的专业人才和技术知识。

3.3灵活性和控制能力的需要：贸易信贷的激励措施

在越来越多的对应收账款管理研究的最新文献中（如艾美瑞，1988；布瑞克和方，1984；斯瓦茨，1974）都强调其潜在的战略价值，这通常被翻译为一系列造成贸易信贷

的机制。其中，我们认识到一个定价机制，一个经营机制，一个财务和基于税收机制以及一个交易机制。接下来，对它们进行简要介绍并转化为可检验的假说。

3.3.1价格机制

在斯沃特兹和惠特科姆（1978,1979）的文章中详细介绍了价格机制，这是根据市场结构和法律安排通常通过价格来市场竞争中公司的盈利能力为基础的。在这种情况下，贸易信贷不仅成为创造隐藏削价的有效工具，也可以用来创造秘密价格歧视（通过扩展不同信用条件和不同客户）。这个价格设置基于以下假设：

作为一个供应商使用贸易信贷来设定价格是不太可能管理好自己的应收账款的。

3.3.2经营机制

另外，为扩大贸易信贷的经营机制假设存货成本较高的企业可以通过扩大贸易信贷来转移给买方支付。这样，贸易信贷就提供了机会将存货业务成本分为买方的机会成本和由卖方提供的延迟付款引起的存货成本负担。

因此，企业，特别是存在季节性销售的企业可以有一个扩大贸易信贷的战略优势。然而当客户在货物存储中占优势时，这一战略的潜在可能性会增加，这会使他们把这些转换为不易变质的产品。这个结论基于以下假设：

销售季节性半成品的供应商不太可能管理好自己的应收账款。

3.3.3财务机制

埃默里（19,1987,1988），斯瓦茨（1974），恰特和沃克（1988）的研究中对扩大贸易信贷的财务模型认为，中小企业和随时获得额外融资的企业扩大贸易信贷会使企业面临更高的融资成本或融资方案。这样，更强大和更具流动性的销售公司可以对小型和自我保护力低下的客户提供资助，从而来扩大和维护自己的未来市场。由于这些企业有能力来充当银行家的角色，他们会不愿意外包自己的应收账款管理。这个结论基于以下假设：

越是灵活的供应商越不会外包自己应收账款管理。

3.3.4基于税收的机制

即使在完全竞争的同类利率的金融市场中，贸易信贷也可以作为财富再分配。因为缴纳高税收的供应商有一个较低的税后融资成本。这样一来，布瑞克和方（1984）中提供的以税收为基础的模型把贸易信贷视为一种卖方和买方直接的再分配税收优惠。他们最后得出结论，“高实际税率卖方将提供更多的贸易信贷，因此更可能有一个较长的应收账款投资”。弗兰克和马克思穆文思（1995）按照这种推理，指出供应商税率越高，他们的比较优势就越高也会更愿意投资于贸易信贷。他们较低的税后财务成本产生了和财务机制中相同的激励效果。这个结论基于一下假设：

拥有较高税收负担的供应商不太可能外包自己的应收账款管理。

出处：[美]格利特·埃尔斯伯格，《关于组织应收账款管理战略方针：一些经验证据》，《管理及治理》期刊，1999（03），pp15-20。