Compare
What you weigh a risk engine against, fairly
Anyone weighing a risk engine compares it with what they do today: a spreadsheet, the ageing report in their system, a credit information report, or nothing at all. Each has something it does well, and this page says what.
The comparison below is between ways of reading the risk in your financial accounts.
What each one does well
A credit information report sees what your financial accounts cannot: records financial institutions share with one another across the market. A spreadsheet carries the judgement of whoever knows the customer. The ageing report in your system is free and exact about what it measures. And staying as you are costs nothing this month.
A comparison that makes every alternative look foolish is an advertisement, and this page is not one.
Side by side
Five ways of reading financial accounts
| Criterion | A spreadsheet, by handWhat someone copied out of the system and judged | Your ERP's ageing reportHow much is overdue, and for how long | A credit information reportHow the counterparty pays everyone else | NothingMemory and the relationship | The Fkah engineYour own financial accounts, invoice by invoice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it reads | Whatever someone copied out of the system, as of the day they copied it | Your financial accounts as they sit in the system | Records financial institutions share about the counterparty across the market | Memory and the relationship | Your own financial accounts, both ends, invoice by invoice |
| Invoice verification | None | None; it takes the invoice as given | None; it never sees your invoices | None | Stamp, hash chain and duplicates, for every invoice |
| A score and its reasons | A personal judgement, in a column if anyone writes it | No score; ageing only | A score about the counterparty as a whole, built on market records | None | A score opening at a neutral 60, each reason moving it by a weight, the sum being the number |
| Government delay | However whoever fills the sheet classes it | Overdue, like any overdue | Usually outside its scope | Known from experience | A timing fact, kept out of the at-risk figure |
| What changed, and when | When someone opens the file | Today's snapshot, with no reason attached | When a new report is pulled | When the payment is late | On every refresh, with the reason and its date |
| Who maintains it | One person, and usually only they understand it | Nobody; it comes with the system | Nobody; it is bought when needed | Nobody | Connected once, then runs on a schedule |
| Cost shape | Time | Included in the system | A fee per report | Nothing today | An annual subscription |
| Best for | Small financial accounts the owner knows name by name | One question: how much is overdue, and for how long | A new counterparty you have no history with | Financial accounts with no concentration and no terms | Financial accounts selling on terms and concentrated on a few names |
Everything said here about the alternatives describes the type, not a named product. No provider is named and no price is quoted.
Fairly
Where each one wins, and where it stops
A spreadsheet, by hand
- Wins
- It carries what no system does: the knowledge of whoever knows the customer.
- Stops
- It stops at that person's limits, and ages the day they leave.
Your ERP's ageing report
- Wins
- Exact and free on its own question: how much is overdue and since when.
- Stops
- It cannot tell a late payer from a failing one, and it never looks at the invoice itself.
A credit information report
- Wins
- It sees what your financial accounts never will: how the counterparty pays everyone else, across the market. For a new counterparty there is nothing else like it.
- Stops
- It reads the counterparty as a whole rather than your relationship with it, never sees your invoices, and is fixed on the day it was pulled.
Nothing
- Wins
- Costs nothing this month, and on small financial accounts it may be enough.
- Stops
- A default arrives first as a late payment, then as news, and nobody can say when it started.
The Fkah engine
- Wins
- Your own financial accounts, both ends, with evidence you can see: invoice by invoice, reason by reason, on every change.
- Stops
- It sees nothing outside your financial accounts. It does not know how your customer pays anyone else, it does not decide for you, and it sets no limit.
The credit information report and the engine
Two different questions, not two rivals
The report answers: how does this counterparty behave with the market? The engine answers: how does it behave with me, are its invoices sound, and where are my financial accounts concentrated? A careful finance function reads both, and the engine neither sells the first nor claims to be it.
The engine is not an approved credit information provider, compiles no payment behaviour on third parties, and sells no assessments about anyone.
Try the engine on one end of your financial accounts
A pilot on your real data, for a period agreed in writing, with a written summary at the end. Pilot terms and the shape of the subscription are on the pricing page.