Category Archives: Uncategorized

How to Treat Progress and Percentage of Completion Billings

There was a time when lenders avoided certain types of receivables such as progress and percentage of completion billings.  However in today’s world this no longer seems to be the case, we frequently see revolving lines of credit that are secured by these types of receivables when performing field exams.

Before you get into the mundane details of the post below take a minute to check out the Disney video, its pretty neat to see history being made.  I’m sure there was a lot of percentage of completion and progress billings taking place during this project!  About three minutes into the video, a time lapse video of Main street being built is shown. Continue reading

Credit Memo Lag and Dilution

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Often examiners recommend adding a “Credit Memo Lag”  ineligible to a prospect or existing client’s borrowing base.  It seems that just as often this recommendation is argued against by the borrower and/or the account manager.  Usually the argument goes something like “credits are the major component of dilution and as long as they are captured in dilution, then a reserve is not needed.”  Other times the recommendation is adjusted to reserve for only the lag up to the eligibility period (i.e. 90 days).  This post will discuss and illustrate why this is not a good idea.  We will also discuss some of the variations we’ve seen used to calculate this reserve and the merits of the various treatments.

There are basically two ways to measure credit memo lag: Continue reading

Inventory – Standard Cost Systems and the Treatment of Variances

The purpose of this post is to discuss some of the possible pitfalls that a lender could encounter when lending on inventory that is managed with a standard cost system.  During this post we will discuss:

  • The difference between management and financial accounting, as it applies to inventory and standard cost systems.
  • The various components of inventory costs (materials, labor and overhead) and how they are impacted by manufacturing efficiencies (or more importantly inefficiencies).
  • The calculation of price and manufacturing variances and how to calculate appropriate borrowing base ineligibles if they exist.
  • The role of field exams and appraisals in mitigating the risks posed by inventory valued at standard costs. Continue reading

Getting More Out Inventory Roll Forwards

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I remember hearing a story several years ago from one of my colleagues about an AR fraud that was discovered by an auditor while performing an inventory roll forward.  The person telling this story was and remains well known in the Asset Based Lending arena, so needless to say I was quite intrigued about how a fraud that occurred with AR could be found while performing an inventory review.  I’ll try to retell the story here; hopefully, my memory will do it justice.  In addition, I’ll try to relate the procedures performed by the auditor to examination procedures performed today. Continue reading