A Quarterly Report for Benchmarking A/R Performance
Q1 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.
We advocate that our common communities of credit risk professionals use this quarterly report to benchmark their A/R performance against industry averages – and to 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.
“The Credit Research Foundation has long desired to expand on its own quarterly report, the National Summary of Domestic Trade Receivables (NSDTR), and this joint report contains A/R aging percentages on considerably more industry segments. This expanded coverage of industry segments will provide the credit community more value for benchmarking credit department performance,” said William F. Balduino, President and COO of the Credit Research Foundation.
The Q1 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 Q1 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.
As a preview of the data available, the chart below shows the top 15 industries that paid more than 90 days late during Q1, January 1 – March 31.
Top 15 Industries Getting Paid Severely Late in Q1 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 | 20.9% | 6.9% | 2.9% | 2.9% | 66.4% | |
| 2759 | Commercial printing | 27.4% | 11.9% | 3.7% | 2.0% | 55.0% | |
| 7372 | Prepackaged software services | 40.1% | 4.4% | 2.3% | 1.5% | 51.6% | |
| 27 | Printing, publishing, and allied industries | 48.9% | 7.1% | 2.3% | 1.4% | 40.3% | 45.40 |
| 5193 | Wholesale flowers/florist supplies | 58.9% | 13.9% | 1.8% | 1.6% | 23.9% | |
| 0181 | Ornamental nursery | 65.2% | 3.7% | 3.0% | 5.5% | 22.5% | |
| 01 | Agricultural production - crops | 63.9% | 6.8% | 3.6% | 7.5% | 18.2% | |
| 5047 | Wholesale medical/hospital equipment | 55.0% | 2.8% | 17.0% | 8.1% | 17.1% | |
| 5142 | Wholesale packaged frozen goods | 70.7% | 11.5% | 1.4% | 0.8% | 15.7% | |
| 3822 | Manufacturing of environmental controls | 53.9% | 19.9% | 8.4% | 3.8% | 13.9% | |
| 7359 | Equipment rental/leasing | 52.1% | 11.7% | 14.6% | 7.9% | 13.7% | |
| 7699 | Repair services | 59.6% | 16.3% | 6.4% | 4.5% | 13.2% | |
| 76 | Miscellaneous repair services | 59.9% | 16.2% | 6.3% | 4.4% | 13.1% | |
| 3444 | Manufacturing of sheet metalwork | 79.0% | 7.2% | 1.4% | 0.9% | 11.6% | |
| 7353 | Heavy construction equipment rental | 46.6% | 24.1% | 11.4% | 6.3% | 11.6% |
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.
