Piles of Cash, Can’t get a Loan

Several months back we noted with interest that “Too Big to Fail Banks” were getting taxpayer cash infusions. Still they don’t loan money for all sorts of reasons.

But in the W.S.J. article “U.S.Firms Build up Record Cash Piles” written by Justin Lahart dated June 11th, the Feds are reporting that companies are hording $1.84 trillion dollars worth of cash. “Cash is still King”.


So, what’s a distributor to do? You need cash to operate. You’ve probably sent back as much product to the manufacturer as they will let you under their policy. You may have even sold off excess product on e-Bay, conducted an auction or sold material to a surplus distributor. Is it time to return more material?

To increase your cash you have probably reduced your head count as salaries are about 50% of your fixed costs. But many are still running their business manually…meaning people and paper or not maximizing the usage of software systems. Could you get more productivity by using your computer to do the work?


You’ve probably stepped up D.S.O. collections, and many are still struggling with SPA collections. Is the computer doing the work for you?

Maybe your inventory view needs to change for letting inventory sitting on your shelf for a year to maybe 9 months or even 6 months. Easier said than done. Right?


It’s midyear and for some, if the sales figures aren’t what you want them to be, what are your sales and business expectations for the remainder of the year? How will you achieve profitability and remain within bank covenants?


How do you address your cash needs for the rest of the year? What are you doing to improve productivity and cash flow? What new software tools / functions have you started to use (or would like software companies to develop)?