As accountants or financial controllers, we need to be aware that creating strong bank relationships is essential. These relationships are critical to insure efficient cash management services and to obtain credit and auxiliary services.

Similar to a supplier of goods or services, we should also view our banks in term of pricing and satisfactory performance which includes intangible factors like loyalty, dependability and a willingness to be flexible.

Building up a relationship is not within a day. Like any relationship-building, it might take years. Even if we have very good relationship with the present banker but due to retirement, transfer to another location and other, we might lose him/her and the need to re-start the relationship again.

Possible ways to create strong bank relationships include:

1. Always keep our banker informed.
   The banker needs to understand our company and its businesses and understanding our financials and with this, they should be in the position to provide us with their optimal service. We can:
   • Inform them about our industry. Areas like how things work in our type of industry, seasonality, competition, customer and supplier relations and long term trends.
   • Show our banker our company by bring the officer(s) to the factory for a tour. We should helps to clarify the fine points of production, distribution, inventory, working capital cycle and others
   • Keep them up-to-date on our financial results. Bankers look with particular favor on those clients who can forecast and plan rather than react to events as they occur. Don’t forget, your bankers also have superior and Credit committee to report to. Hence, it is important to foresee a difficult period ahead and able to go and explain to the bankers how you plan to manage it even if you don’t need any extra financing.

   But of course, its also important to note that we should give our bankers just enough information. Always remember that once we have given the bankers certain documents on a regular basis, they’ll want them all the times.

2. Vice versa, as accountants / financial controllers, we need to at least understand the basic of Banking. The more we know or learn about how banks work, how they allocate costs and realize profits, their problems or trends affecting them, the better we will be able to get along with our bankers.
3. We should try to avoid changing banks unnecessarily. Creating a relationship need time and trust. Like other human, our bankers would also like to see some loyalty from us particularly in the past, we may have depended on them for financing an emergency but just because of some small under-cutting from other bankers, we leave them without thinking twice, When we go to them again , if we are in their position, how will we feel?
4. We should always plan and think ahead by not springing surprises to our bankers. We should always try to anticipate and plan for the company’s financial needs. Otherwise, it looks ridiculous to go back to the bank for more. Surplus funding in our company’s coffers will definitely be better than deficit and further save us from embarrassing ourselves to ask for our bankers for more.

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