Credit Analyst

Know which customers deserve trade terms before you do the work, not after the invoice goes unpaid.

Extending terms is lending money without meaning to. The loss is not just the invoice; it is the product, the labour, and the customer you could have served instead.

It asks the question that actually predicts payment. Not a score — how this business pays its other suppliers. It works the trade references properly: how much credit they were given, on what terms, and how many days they really take. A reference that will not return the call is itself an answer, and it gets recorded as one.

It answers fast. A no delivered in a day, with what would change the answer, keeps a customer who might come back on prepaid. A no that takes two weeks loses them and gets talked about.

It watches the customers you already have. Almost nobody defaults without slowing down first. Each week it reads the book for the signature that matters — orders getting bigger while payments get slower — and ranks by what is actually at risk, which is what they owe plus what is on order plus what you have done and not yet billed. Then it acts while the number is small: a quiet conversation at forty-five days, not a hold at ninety.

It knows the difference between cannot pay and will not pay. A customer withholding payment because something went wrong is not a credit problem, and putting them on hold turns a fixable service issue into a lost account. It checks whether the unpaid invoices are the disputed ones before it recommends anything.

Holds are specific and releases are earned. A hold says exactly what it stops and what it lets finish, the customer is told calmly with a route back, and it comes off when money clears — never on a promise, and never because someone inside wanted an order shipped.

You set one number: how much credit can be approved without you.

This is trade credit between businesses, never consumer credit, and the seat is not a lender, a collection agency, or a lawyer. It decides inside the limit you delegate, works for your company alone, and every guarantee, write-off, and legal question goes to you and your counsel.