Building materials is a credit business wearing a products costume: heavy invoices, long terms, dealers who are themselves extending credit to contractors. The brand that manages credit by relationship funds its channel's working capital and calls it sales. xMatix manages it by record: limits that gate, collections that allocate, ageing that ties out.
The gate is at the order
Dealer limits and terms enforce at order capture — field, portal, back office — with over-limit and overdue conditions gating the order into an explicit approval path. The exception is a decision someone made on the record, not a default nobody noticed. Exposure by dealer and territory is a live view.
Collections on the beat, against invoices
Officers collect during visits — cash, cheque, digital — allocated to specific invoices, offline-capable, with the dealer's ageing and promises on screen before the conversation. Cheque realisation has its own lifecycle; a bounce reopens the invoice instead of leaving the books flattering themselves.
One ageing, every altitude
Because collections allocate to invoices and invoices live in the ledger, ageing is one truth at every level — officer, territory, CFO. DSO by territory, collection efficiency by officer, and the interaction between scheme benefits and payment behaviour are all reports on the same records.
Paint dealers carry the same season-shaped credit exposure against a painter-driven pull — see paint dealer management.
Common questions
How does credit gating work for dealers?
Limits and terms live on the dealer account and enforce at order time in every channel. Orders that breach gate into an approval path, so exceptions carry a name and a reason.
Can officers collect and allocate payments in the field?
Yes — collections capture on the visit against specific invoices, offline if needed, with instrument tracking (cheque lifecycles included) and postings that land in the same ledger finance closes.
How do payment promises get tracked?
Recorded on the visit, resurfaced on the next one — and broken promises age visibly per dealer, which changes the tone of the third conversation.
Does scheme participation affect credit visibility?
The records connect: a dealer's slab attainment, outstanding and payment discipline sit on one account, so the "great volume, terrible payer" profile is obvious before the next scheme rewards it.