eCredit provides indispensable information on how a given customer is paying. "eCredit gives us relevant data, not just aggregate information," said Tami Stone, Director of Credit and Collections for freightquote.com. "How a particular shipper is paying the electricity company is not as important to me as how this company is paying its freight bills. eCredit reports provide this valuable information."

In addition, NACM credit groups utilizing eCredit platform provide a forum for freightquote.com to discuss customer trends. "Being part of the credit group is a major benefit of eCredit; I can call on vendors in other industries to discuss the developments pertaining to a given account and gain that extra comfort level," added Stone.

freightquote.com has been using eCredit reports for close to 3 years, and in this time has managed to reduce bad debt significantly. At least part of this reduction can be attributed to monthly account reviews that identify those accounts that need particular attention for collections. For example, instead of sending an account to a third-party collection agency, eCredit allows freightquote.com to interact with other companies across different industries to determine how best to get money from a customer and tweak collections processes to bring in the cash. This has saved freightquote.com several thousands of dollars a month.

Finally, freightquote.com has found that eCredit data continues to increase in validity and volume. "As time goes by, the information in eCredit reports increases in breadth and reliability," said Eric Votaw, Credit Manager, freightquote.com. "I can view trends and know that what I am seeing is an accurate reflection of how this customer will pay."

"We were experiencing double-digit growth in new customer acquisition," said Ken Ford, Director of Credit Services, CDW. "Each new customer required credit approval, so we knew we needed to make fast, accurate credit decisions in order to quickly service our customers and to expedite the sales process and manage operational costs."

The old credit approval process at CDW required the company's analysts to manually review credit information received daily from information bureaus. The information could have been as much as three months old, and the process was often time-consuming. By using older data, the company was not certain it was providing the most accurate credit limit to new customers. It was possible that CDW was missing sales opportunities because it was not allotting a large enough credit limit to low-risk customers. In addition, older data meant that CDW might not be immediately aware of negative changes in a company's credit rating, or if the customer was declared fraudulent.

CDW chose eCredit to make credit decisions more accurate, efficient and consistent, and to manage risk more closely. The eCredit solution offered real-time access to bureau data and scores, to ensure decisions were based on the most up-to-date information. In addition, eCredit software took CDW's existing credit decision process-which involved gathering information manually and applying a credit limit based on the resulting customer score-and automated it from start to finish. This dramatically reduced the time and effort needed to process a single transaction, and improved consistency of credit decisions.

"With eCredit, we built our own credit line assignment model in the system," said Ford. "This means we are issuing credit based on our own perception of risk, and we've ensured continuity in our credit portfolio." The flexibility of the eCredit software also meant CDW could change credit decision rules, data elements used to assign credit limits, and scorecard thresholds as needed-such as with a change in economic conditions-with little delay.

Using the eCredit system, CDW reduced the transaction time for an application by 75 percent, speeding up the time to order fulfillment. CDW now processes some 3,000 credit decisions per month, and virtually all credit-approved, in-stock orders ship the same day, with close to 15,000 orders shipped daily. Despite the changes in the economy after implementation of the eCredit software, CDW did not see a significant change in bad debt loss-meaning the system's improved accuracy may have prevented risky lending decisions CDW has also dramatically improved efficiency.

"With eCredit, we can handle up to twice the volume of applications with the same number of employees," said Ford. "That means CDW has no slowdown in credit processing even when there is a spike in orders. In the credit department, we have peace of mind of knowing the credit decision will not be the limiting factor in delivery of orders."