ACMS Newsletter

Dear members and followers,

During the last month’ the ACMS was in a quiet period. Not quiet in terms of activities, but quiet in terms of communication. The intension of this newsletter is to change this and tell you what has been done.

New Website: We were working on stepping up our website to the new modern style using the latest technology, which enables the site for improved view with a smartphone and tablet. The structure of the website didn’t change substantially, but the content improved by far:

• Homepage now contains business news in four languages, which are essential for a credit manager’s daily life on screening for positive and negative news regarding companies and countries.
• Education: Our 2019 course for becoming a certified credit professional, held together with the Controllers Academy, is promoted. Start date is October 24, 2019. Class size is limited and we have a view spots available left only.
• Events:
  • Strategy Meeting (AMCS board only), April 3, 2019, 5 PM, Zurich
  • Spring Event & General Assembly, May 15, 2019, 1:30 PM to 6 PM, 25hours Hotel, Zurich
  • Swiss Credit Management Forum 2019, November 26, 2018, 1:30 PM to 6:00 PM at Technopark Zurich
• Network: The Association of Credit Management Switzerland takes a more active role internationally now. We are supporting the FCIB and Noelin Hawkins and will play an active partner on the European Credit Summit.
• Jobs: We are proud to have built up a partnership with x28. They have a web search engine, which screens the entire Swiss web on open and publicly available jobs every day. They were so kind and make credit jobs available to us only, for integrating it into our website. In other words, you can see all open jobs at our website now.
• Programmer: Last but not least, the company behind the scenes in building up all this is Muenter Solutions.

New Invoicing and accounting system: Our new website is not a website only. It is a modern Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system combined with an automated invoicing. The payment process offers all electronic payment methods that are available in Europe today. A payment leads to an automatic match against the invoice and settlement in the accounting system. Overall this leads to a minimum manual work effort in the new work process for our finance officer in building the annual statements of the association. In other words, the ACMS has a fully integrated credit and collections system now. This can be used by SMEs (Small and Medium size Entities). Let us know if you want to know more about it!

Bringing the Minimum Requirements of Credit Management to the second edition: This has been done for the German version so far. The German version is being translated into English as we speak. Afterwards the French and Italian version will follow.

“Credit Risk Management – Code of Best Practice” is available on the homepage in German and English.

Initiating a market study: The ACMS announced a Master Thesis Student in LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/cap/view/1091924239/). The idea is to find a student, who wants to write the master thesis in the area of Credit Management combined with a market study in how intensively Swiss companies do credit and collections management.

Extending international relations: We are more and more actively liaising with the FCIB, FECMA, and other country level associations for partnering in terms of education and events. This extends our networks and helps our partners learning from us and us learning from them.

Driving the Romandie area: “After the launch of the Romandie Section with the first networking event Sept 13, 2018 we are now focussing in the development of an educational program in Credit Management aiming to be launched beginning of 2020. Meanwhile we will host our next local networking event on March 21, 2019 in Geneva, where you are all invited to attend (subscription on https://www.eventbrite.com/e/invitation-2nd-acms-romandie-networking-event-march-21st-2019-tickets-56181397071). In October 2019 we will organize a third networking event in Geneva or Lausanne, exact date and program are still to be defined.” Alain Vonrufs (President ACMS Romandie)

Boosting the Ticino area: “We have been very busy over the last months. As a matter of fact the activity of the Ticino Division of the Association during the fall / winter period have been boost by our first time event Education Course hosted by the Ticino Chamber of Commerce. The Educational Course had the scope to allow credit managers or simple interested persons to have a complete overview of the role, tasks, responsibilities, tools and options for the daily life of credit officers with the target to expand their knowledge in areas where we believed there could have been some lacks.

Educational Course has been split in Modules such as

• How to manage and set up a credit insurance policy
• Dunning and legal recoveries
• Trade Finance
• How to interpret a financial statement

and each of them has been presented by local experts in their field.

At the end of the Education Course an exam, run by the Board Member of the Association, will take place in order to test the participants. A Certificate will be then provided in case the said examination will be passed. 

Intention is to repeat the same Course next year by adjusting the topics depending on the requirement.” Sergio Vignone (President ACMS Ticino)

At this point, I want to thank the ACMS team for their outstanding efforts. I am proud to be part of this team. You guys rock!

Best regards,
Danny Kaltenborn
President ACMS