A Quarterly Report for Benchmarking A/R Performance
Q2 2019 Report
Dun & Bradstreet and the Credit Research Foundation have partnered to help the commercial credit community by jointly creating this Accounts Receivable and Days Sales Outstanding Industry Report. Use this quarterly report to benchmark your company's A/R performance against industry averages and investigate the differences. Although differences could be driven by unique company portfolios, we believe that using credit best practices play an important part in driving A/R performance.
This joint report expands upon the Credit Research Foundation's own quarterly report, the National Summary of Domestic Trade Receivables (NSDTR), by providing A/R aging percentages on considerably more industry segments. This expanded coverage of industry segments gives the credit community more value for benchmarking credit department performance, according to William F. Balduino, President and COO of the Credit Research Foundation.
The Q2 2019 report lists more than 225 industries by SIC code, along with the percentage of Dun & Bradstreet reporting companies that are current on payments, then slow to 30 days late, slow to 60 days late, slow to 90 days late, and then severely delinquent at 91+ days late. The final column is the Credit Research Foundation’s DSO figure (for more information, see Methodology below.) The Q2 2019 report data is presented in 15 different industry segments: Agriculture, Chemicals, Construction, Consumer Goods, Energy and Utilities, Food, Machinery, Metals and Mining, Manufacturing, Retail, Professional and Business Services, Technology and Electronics, Transportation, Wholesale, and Wood and Paper.
Highlights of the Q2 report show that software companies are reporting to Dun & Bradstreet that less than 30% of their accounts receivable dollars are paid on time, and nearly 60% of their dollars are severely delinquent (more than 90 days late). Several SICs in the publishing industry also report a high number of their accounts receivable dollars as severely delinquent.
As a preview of the data available, the chart below shows the top 15 industries that paid more than 90 days late during Q2, April 1 – June 30.
Top 15 Industries Getting Paid Severely Late in Q2 2019
| SIC Code | Industry | % Paying Current | Up To 30 Days Late | 30-60 Days Late | 60-90 Days Late | 91+ Days Late | CRF DSO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2741 | Miscellaneous publishing | 3.52% | 1.12% |
0.56% | 0.56% | 94.24% | |
| 7372 | Prepackaged software services | 31.47% | 4.47% | 2.28% | 1.84% | 59.94% | |
| 2759 | Commercial printing | 28.47% | 11.05% | 3.24% | 2.19% | 55.04% | |
| 27 | Printing, publishing, and allied industries | 44.98% | 6.47% | 2.48% | 1.27% | 44.79% | 44.80 |
| 5193 | Wholesale flowers/florist supplies | 60.47% | 10.38% | 1.45% | 1.69% | 26.00% | |
| 5047 | Wholesale medical/hospital equipment | 52.16% | 2.19% | 16.69% | 7.61% | 21.35% | |
| 3441 |
Structural metal fabrication |
65.40% | 8.50% | 4.98% | 2.76% | 18.35% | |
| 5084 | Wholesale industrial equipment |
51.55% | 19.60% | 8.65% | 4.00% |
16.21% | |
| 5142 | Wholesale packaged frozen goods | 69.33% | 12.40% | 1.86% | 1.02% | 15.38% | |
| 7359 | Equipment rental/leasing | 52.33% | 10.07% | 14.44% | 7.99% | 15.18% | |
| 7371 | Custom computer programming |
59.86% | 15.77% | 6.02% | 3.59% | 14.76% | |
| 3822 | Manufacturing of environmental controls | 55.73% | 19.41% | 6.73% | 3.73% | 14.40% | |
| 3496 |
Manufacturing misc. fabricated wire products | 67.04% | 12.13% | 3.35% | 5.58% | 11.88% | |
| 7699 | Repair services | 64.51% | 14.88% | 5.82% | 3.58% | 11.22% | |
| 76 | Miscellaneous repair services | 64.68% | 14.81% | 5.81% | 3.56% | 11.14% |
Methodology
This report is created from Dun & Bradstreet’s robust dataset of commercial accounts receivable payment data as provided by credit departments for credit reporting purposes. The DSO numbers are those collected by CRF from its NSDTR survey process. Where possible, Dun & Bradstreet’s A/R aging data and CRF’s DSO numbers are presented side by side for an industry. Both sets of data are presented when the numbers of providers and survey results meet a minimum threshold of relevance.
