Question

Q 7.40: Approximately 85% of the customers at Hanson’s Furniture Store purchase furniture using store credit. The store’s average collection period is 75 days. However, the store must pay their vendors within 30 days. What is the store’s best option for maintaining their minimum cash balance?

Answer 1

Answer: Offer incentives to Customers to reduce Collection time.

Explanation:

Hanson’s Furniture Store should work to reduce the amount of time it takes to collect payments from customers. It takes them over 2 months to collect payments on average and compared to a payables payment in 30 days that's quite troublesome.

They should therefore work to reduce their Receivables Collection time.

One way they can do that is to offer incentives such as trade discounts. A popular one would be the 2/10, net 30 rule. This means that the customer would get a 2% discount if they pay in 10 days or else they will pay the full amount in 30 days. This incentive can go a long way in reducing Payables collection periods.