Innovative Accounts Receivable Consulting

At Optimize Receivables, We Bring Common Sense to Consulting 

It’s said that common sense is not that common anymore.  Certainly, that is true in the world of consulting.   

• Have you had hordes of people descend on your business and pretend to listen?  
• Have you experienced the elucidation of scripted best practice without consideration for your business?   
• Are you tired of listening to “experts” who lack any business experience? 
• Have you seen technical teams who can’t apply their app to your business process? 
• Are you frustrated with expensive projects that don’t deliver their ROI?   
• Are you fed up with help desks that don’t respond to your work tickets?   
• Are you challenged with managing the technical aspects of your system?   
• Is your consultant slow to respond?  

Then you need to consider Optimize Receivables for Accounts Receivable Consulting.  Our experienced team will: 

1. Listen intently to discern your needs.   
2. Measure your capability by understanding your current state.   
3. Work with you to critically refine a solution.   
4. Apply our experience to optimize and simplify the solution for robustness.   
5. Leverage change management skills to secure small wins and expand these for major successes.   

We specialize in areas of accounts receivable consulting that are particularly challenging to address, where the most drain on profits can occur in the AR space which is Deduction and Trade Management. These are especially a challenge in the Food and Beverage sector of the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) space. This is where our deepest roots are. It is an area many choose not to seek to understand deeply due to the complexity and time commitment.

Additionally, Credit, Collections and Cash Application processes can have a very negative impact on the organization if not done efficiently, effectively and accurately. While critical to do these processes well, they are generally easier to solve for than Deduction Management. This is why, over the years, we grew to be experts in these spaces as well. It was out of necessity and a desire to grow and go deeper.

Optimize Receivables has successfully worked closely with clients over the past decade to develop these capabilities that you can leverage to quickly address issues with Accounts Receivable Consulting and trade promotion management.  More importantly, each of our team members developed a passion for process improvement in their previous work and life experience.   

Why did Kim Specialize in Deductions?

I had an interesting and unique start and Hormel Foods. About 6 years into my professional career, I took a leap of faith which led me into the world of Deductions. But first, let me take a step back. 

After graduating from Bethel University in Saint Paul, Minnesota with a degree in Communications and a minor in Business, I chose a role at a professional hiring and placement agency called Express Personnel. I saw it as an opportunity to get to work immediately until I better understood where I “belonged”. 

For just over a year, I spent time interviewing and hiring many people looking for short and long term work opportunities. I had the privilege to tour facilities where companies were in need of skilled labor and leveraged the services of Express Personnel. It was during this time I felt compelled and sought to really understand the voice of the customer. I wanted to help find and place people in these companies that could help these businesses fulfill what they were in business to do. This proved to be a very difficult yet rewarding position. I came to understand the hiring process, managing talent, leading during challenging situations and what it really meant to create relationships and serve customers.

One day, something compelled me to read the hiring ads within our local paper. I was not looking for new work as I felt like I was just getting good at my current position.There was a company, a non-profit, that was looking for a Transit Manager for a public transit company called Mower County Heartland Express. I ended up making a call and applying for this position. A funny side note, on my way to my interview I got lost (this was before the days of the use of GPS within my vehicle). I ended up having to call the hiring manager for help and ended up being late for the appointment. But, I made it! Ironically, they still hired me. This ended up being a stepping stone to the world of Deductions. Heartland Express had a dial-a-ride and a volunteer driver service. It was incredible and I saw a lot of potential to grow the service to support more people. During this time I managed all aspects of the transit business including getting the funding we needed and marketing our services. During this role, one of the greatest opportunities was to solve, create and build something lasting. My people and organizational skills were put to the test every single day. 

It was during this time, I had met Mike McCoy, who was the CFO at Hormel Foods. I was pregnant with my first child during this time. He was leading an effort to provide transportation for plant employees. We ended up working together to create work routes using our buses. It was an incredible opportunity and success. I grew to deeply respect Mike during this time. When I decided it was time to leave this position, I had sent my contacts my farewell greeting, one of them was to Mike. Within a short time, I received a response from him wishing me well and asking if we could meet which of course I said yes. 

Mike said that he would sure like the opportunity to find a role at Hormel within his group if I was interested. He said it may not be the perfect role for me but it would be a good start within an established and incredibly successful company. I was flattered by his offer to explore this option. I had the greatest respect for him and the company. I thought about for a short time and ended up applying for the role.

I ended up taking a job as a Collections Analyst. Never a position I would have found myself in but it was the job that was open at the time that most closely matched my skills and abilities.

Ironically, a few weeks into this role, the Treasurer of the company at the time, Jody Feragen, asked if I may be interested in working on a special assignment. Deductions were growing at a faster rate the sales. Of course I said yes even though I had no idea what a Deduction really was. In fact, I challenged her, asking if she was sure she wanted me in this role given that I was new to the organization and didn’t even know what a Deduction was. She laughed and assured me. 

At that time within the organization, the sales people were responsible for the identification, research and resolution of a Deduction. I started out simply by stating in the notes of all the aged Deductions within the mainframe “Please provide clearing information”. If they didn’t respond in time I completed administrative type write-off’s. This was very routine and I established a process to ensure we were better managing the Deductions and clearing in a timely fashion while still ensuring sales had every opportunity to resolve within a reasonable time.

It was during this time, that my roots were established in the Deductions space. Rather humble beginnings but was the catalyst for a much deeper and lasting positive impact. I learned to communicate effectively with the sales team and leadership, empathizing with the challenge of getting proper documentation, finding and matching to the proper events within their Trade Promotion Management system. There were also a set of them that were related to Invoice Related discrepancies or compliance type Deductions.  

I empathized with them because I understood that it was the dreaded part of their jobs and the activities often didn’t align with their skill set. They weren’t exactly good at it either although there were those rare exceptions. I ended up feeling more a part of the sales team than I did the Credit Department because of how much I worked with them to resolve the Deductions. 

I realized early that the key to efficient and effective deduction resolution was through building relationships, both internal and external. It requires strong collaboration. It requires patience, great communication skills, good organization and tracking. Proper systems are awesome too but I’ve come to realize that this isn’t the key to an efficient and effective process. It is having the right people, on the right bus and in the right seat!

At Hormel I went on to continue to go deeper in the Deduction space, transitioning to working on special assignments within the Consumer Products Sales organization. I was afforded many opportunities to collaborate with people I grew to deeply admire, like Kevin Kroymann, to learn how to get to the root cause, to truly solve business challenges, to build a lead a team tasked with being the best possible support to sales so that they could free up more time to actually sell.

Additionally, I learned how to operate, navigate and be effective within a corporate structure. Many challenges and roadblocks presented themselves along the way and I had to dig deep. I’m so grateful for this time and the unique opportunity I had to learn, create and solve. Not many have the opportunity to start a new department in a large and established organization. I’ll forever be grateful to people like Mike McCoy who saw promise in me and gave me a chance to work for such a great company and make a difference in many lives.