Vengroff, Williams and Associates Adds Marquee Companies to Client Roster including Metagenics and Airgas

Garden Grove, Calif. — Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc. (VWA), a leading provider of receivables management and business process outsourcing solutions, today announced new customers including Metagenics (www.metagenics.com); and Airgas, Inc. (NYSE: ARG) (www.airgas.com). In the current economic climate, both customers turned to VWA to help improve cash flow, reduce operational costs and increase visibility across the Order-to-Cash cycle.

Effective management of accounts receivable is a critical area to target for liquidity management and process improvements, as it is a key driver of cash, cost containment and customer relationships. VWA provides end-to-end collaborative financial management solutions, which are able to touch cash coming in and out of the enterprise at every point, thus giving CFO’s and credit/collection managers the tools to help drive maximum value from working capital and help reduce risk. Both Airgas and Metagenics have increased cash flow of aging receivables over a year old by 15%-20% of the projected goal by outsourcing aging collections to Vengroff, Williams and Associates.

Metagenics, a global life sciences company focused on reversing chronic illness and improving health and wellness based in San Clemente, CA. and Airgas, through its subsidiaries, the largest U.S-based distributor of industrial, media and specialty gases and related hard goods based in Radnor, PA., turned to Vengroff, Williams and Associates to assist with the collections of aging receivables. In both instances, within 60 days, VWA’s team of commercial collections specialists was fully implemented and collecting on the portfolios.

For Metagenics, VWA has collected approximately 1 in every 4 invoices of outstanding receivables and for Airgas, approximately an average of 1 in every 3 invoices.

“Having known of the benefits and success of Vengroff, Williams and Associates, Inc., I was aware of the company’s ability to turn complex finance and accounting operations into world-class credit and collection facilities,” commented Elizabeth Egan – Credit ManagerMetagenics. “VWA has a proven solution and a stellar collections team, and I am therefore confident that Metagenics will experience fast improvements in DSO (days sales outstanding) and free cash flow.”

“Our aggressive collections efforts and success rate earns us the results that our clients are looking for in today’s hard economic times.” stated Matt Muramoto, VWA’s team leader for Metagenics and Airgas. “With over 46 years of experience in the debt collection industry, we partner with our clients to ensure increased cash flow that is essential to their growth.”

Companies increasingly view the management of working capital, particularly accounts receivable, as an important measure of a company’s financial health. Historically, these operations have been highly inefficient due to a lack of integrated systems for Order-to-Cash management. Many companies have identified their finance and credit operations as key areas for efficiency and productivity improvement. VWA’s automation and collaboration technology embraces an integrated approach to order-to-cash management and helps drive collaboration between credit, sales, service and customers. Using a holistic and integrated approach coupled with automation, companies can achieve significant financial and operational benefits such as lowered DSO (days’ sales outstanding), decreased bad debt expense and reduced operating expenses.

“A weak link in the Order-to-Cash cycle can hurt the entire financial supply chain and lessen the value of the credit and collections department,” said Mark Vengroff, chief executive officer of Vengroff, Williams and Associates. “By driving automation, workflow and collaboration across the Order-to-Cash cycle, VWA is able to support Metagenics and Airgas to gain control of their trade receivables, which helps them to increase liquidity throughout the financial supply chain.”

About Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc.
Founded in 1963, and with $23 billion dollars under its management, Vengroff, Williams & Associates is a leading provider of receivables management business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions for Fortune 1000 companies such as Ford Motor Company, Federal Express, Kodak, Microsoft, Yamaha and others. Applying state-ofthe-art proprietary information systems, best practice work flow and people to realize cost reductions, operating efficiencies, and improved process design, Vengroff, Williams and Associates’ approach enables clients to easily insource or outsource all or part of the quote-to-cash function. Solutions are customized to each client’s requirements or expanded to incorporate specialized tools and SAS 70 compliant processes and procedures. Services include full order to cash processing, third party collections, EIPP systems, deduction management, dispute management, auto cash solutions, front-end risk mitigation, and tax resolution. Named a Top 21 enterprise-level FAO service provider by FAO Today Magazine and to the Global Services Top 10 in the FAO Category, to learn more about the award-winning Vengroff, Williams and Associates, please visit www.vwainc.com or telephone (866) 393-4892.