He suggests calling or writing the trustee and explaining that you would like to do an extensive question and answer, so "maybe you could give us another day, another time, another place so we can come in and do the interview."

Since trustee compensation is based on assets allocated, he's going to be amenable, Diwik says. "If you think you know where the debtor has hidden some assets, that's an opportunity for him to increase his compensation. He'll be motivated to help you out. But if you fail to alert him to the time you'll need, you both lose. And remember, this is all sworn testimony. If it goes to litigation, or even becomes a criminal case, this can be used against the debtor."

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3. The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us

Are your credit and collections systems and procedures flawless? Probably not, but with the crush of daily work you can't stop everything to try to improve them. That might happen, however, in the event of some major organizational change, like a merger or acquisition. It's what happened here.

Annual credit reviews of Andrew Corp.'s 2,000 largest accounts with active credit lines used to be done during the final two months of the company's fiscal year—August and September. Senior Credit Analyst Michele Pancotto, CCE, CICP, acknowledges that this wasn't the best way of handling the reviews, but she explains that she and her busy staff just couldn't seem to free up the time until they absolutely had to.

Now the reviews are conducted at the rate of about 150 a month year round. "We feel much more efficient and less harassed about having to do something all at once," she says. "But more important, this helps us get rid of or pull down accounts to no limits when we see they haven't bought anything for an extended period.

"It's better to take the credit limits out rather than have a surprise somewhere along the way. We don't want to get into those situations where orders come in and we're working with a two-year-old limit that's no longer justified by the customer's deteriorated financial condition. We need to be proactive in times like this."

Why the annual credit review schedule was changed is as interesting and instructive as the change itself. Andrew Corp. was acquired by CommScope, and, like other decision makers throughout the company, Pancotto was anxious to make a really good impression on the new management.

"It's a healthy aspect of an acquisition," she says. "A lot of people balk, but I think it's the best thing that ever happened to us. You can go along suffering inefficiencies, or you can get jolted out of them. I see great improvements already."

Soon after the acquisition, CommScope management conducted a customer financial workshop for personnel from business units from all over the world. And it wasn't just those from far and wide she benefited from meeting. "I met people I've worked with for the past five years but never met before, and they were in my own building," she says. "That was invaluable, especially at this point, for developing some kind of personal rapport. Just letting us get to know each other was wonderful."

Among the specific issues taken up at the workshop were customer deductions and how they could be resolved better. All the people who were involved with these issues sat around a table and hashed things out.

"Tax issues are one of the biggest causes of deductions for us," she explains. "We discussed how, in setting up new accounts, we have to be much more aware of having the tax information we need. Customers are continually taking deductions because of the failure to get the tax exemption straight. You could have had hundreds of billings that have to be resolved one at a time. We realized that if we did it when we first set up accounts we could prevent all of those deductions, and we knew we couldn't just figure that someone else would take care of it."

Systems for resolving sales tax and other deduction spawning issues were established at subsequent meetings involving credit, customer service, invoicing and other personnel. "The new overall department name is customer financial services," says Pancotto. "It helps us realize we're not just looking at customers from the credit perspective. We're all much more aware of the importance of integrating our responsibilities."

How can you best operate in an acquisition environment? Pancotto allows that it can be tricky. The sense of having someone looking over your shoulder all the time can be a little nerve racking, and somehow you have to share information without stepping on toes. The best rule, she says, is to just do your best job. "Don't hide things, and be open to people and to new ideas."