FURNITURE MANUFACTURERS CREDIT ASSOCIATION • CONNECT • PROTECT • COLLECT
FALL HIGH POINT MARKET 2026 • OCTOBER 17–21
The Capital Behind the Order
At Fall High Point Market, retailers will decide where to invest their inventory dollars. Suppliers should be equally deliberate about the vendor credit—and the capital—standing behind the sale.
By David R. Johnston Vice President & General Manager Furniture Manufacturers Credit Association Fall High Point Market • October 17–21, 2026
High Point Market credit decisions deserve the same attention as product, placement and sales opportunities. When the home furnishings industry gathers in High Point this October, most of the attention will naturally be on opportunity.
New collections. New accounts. Expanded placements. Larger programs. New store openings. Fresh introductions for established customers.
That is what Market is supposed to create.
Across more than 11.5 million square feet of showroom space and 2,000 exhibitors, retailers will spend five days deciding which products, suppliers and programs deserve their attention—and their investment.
The retailer
Where should we invest our inventory dollars?
The supplier
How much of our capital are we willing to carry in the customer’s receivable?
Those decisions are connected. Before Market, suppliers can identify the accounts where a larger order could materially change exposure. During Market, they can keep new information moving between Sales, Credit, Finance, Operations and Collections while orders are being discussed.
Every Market order carries two decisions: what do we want to sell—and how much vendor credit do we want standing behind it?
A Sale on Terms Is More Than a Sale
Consider a $100,000 order.
From the sales side of the supplier’s business, the headline is easy: $100,000 in new business.
But if the merchandise is sold on open terms, the transaction does not end when the order is accepted—or even when the goods ship. By that point, the supplier has manufactured or purchased the product, carried inventory, paid operating expenses, perhaps paid freight and delivered the merchandise. The customer has the goods, while the supplier still waits for the cash.
Instead, it has an account receivable.
There is nothing unusual about that arrangement. Vendor credit has helped commerce move for generations. It allows good customers to purchase merchandise, manage working capital and grow without paying cash before every delivery. For suppliers, terms can strengthen relationships and make sales possible that might otherwise never occur.
Terms are a sales tool—and a financing decision.
Until the receivable becomes cash, part of the supplier’s capital remains committed to the transaction. So the question behind a Market order is larger than Can we make this sale?
There is another:
How much supplier capital are we comfortable putting behind it—and what information supports that decision?
There Is Opportunity Heading Into Market
Suppliers are heading into Fall Market with legitimate reasons to look for opportunity.
Smith Leonard’s latest available Furniture Insights, published September 4 and covering June industry results, reported residential furniture orders 11% ahead of June 2025, bringing first-half 2026 orders 4% above the comparable period last year. June shipments were 3% higher year over year and backlogs were 11% higher, while year-to-date shipments remained even with 2025.
The broader economy also remains resilient. The Bureau of Economic Analysis’ September 30 annual update estimated real U.S. GDP growth at a 2.2% annual rate in the second quarter. In August, consumer spending increased 0.9% in current dollars and 0.6% after inflation.
But the same data show why an industry-wide improvement is not an account-level all-clear. PCE inflation remained 3.4% above a year earlier, core PCE inflation was 3.0%, and inflation-adjusted disposable personal income was unchanged for the month. Existing-home sales also remained restrained, running at a 3.98 million annual pace in August with 4.9 months of inventory.
The opportunity can be real without the strength being uniform.
One retailer may be gaining share. Another may be stable. Another may be selling merchandise while quietly experiencing more pressure on cash, margin or working capital.
An industry statistic cannot tell a supplier which customer is which. High Point Market credit decisions still have to be made account by account.
High Point Market Credit Starts at the Account Level
A national order increase cannot tell a supplier whether a particular retailer is gaining share. Housing statistics cannot tell you whether an individual dealer’s inventory is turning. Consumer-spending data cannot tell you whether one customer’s cash position is improving. And a strong Market order does not, by itself, tell you how comfortably the customer can support the resulting obligation.
The account—not the industry average—is where the credit decision is made.
That is why FMCA’s recent Credit Risk Pulse matters. It gives us a view of what credit professionals are seeing one account at a time rather than asking a national statistic to answer a customer-level question.
50%
said overall payment performance had somewhat worsened
11 of 22
64%
reported slower payments
14 of 22
59%
reported more reduced communication or difficulty reaching customers
13 of 22
55%
had become more selective when evaluating or extending credit
12 of 22
FMCA’s August pulse included 22 anonymous member credit professionals. It was a member pulse, not a statistically representative survey of the entire industry, so the counts matter as much as the percentages.
What members described was not universal deterioration. Some customers remained strong. Some continued paying much as they always had. The changes were concentrated in particular accounts and particular behaviors.
FMCA’s member pulse suggests that the pressure is selective rather than universal. That makes account-level information particularly important.
“We all want and need sales, but we have to weigh the pros and cons of the sale against the collection of the sale.”
— FMCA member credit professional, August 2026 Credit Risk Pulse
That is not Credit arguing against Sales. It is an argument for understanding the capital being committed when the company sells more.
A Larger Order Can Change the Decision Without Changing the Customer
A High Point Market credit decision can change materially even when the customer itself has not changed.
Suppose an established customer normally carries $50,000 of exposure with a supplier. The relationship is good. The retailer has paid acceptably. Sales knows the account well. Credit knows its history.
Then Market goes exceptionally well. Several introductions connect. The customer expands a program. Perhaps another location is involved. By the end of the conversation, projected exposure could rise from $50,000 to $125,000.
Normal exposure
$50K
→
Potential exposure
$125K
The customer may be the same. The supplier is now considering an additional $75,000 of exposure.
Do the assumptions that supported $50,000 also support $125,000?
This was one of the central ideas behind FMCA’s first Credit & Risk Outlook. Commercial decisions rest on assumptions. A selling price assumes a certain cost. An inventory commitment assumes demand. A credit limit assumes that a customer will generate sufficient cash to meet its obligations.
Business has always required decisions to be made without perfect information. The problem arises when an important assumption changes while the decision built upon it does not.
Market can increase exposure in an afternoon. The information supporting that exposure needs to keep pace.
Growth Can Be Good News—and Still Change Working-Capital Needs
An unusually large order should not automatically be interpreted as either reassuring or alarming. A retailer experiencing genuine growth may need substantially more merchandise. That is exactly the kind of customer a supplier wants to grow with.
But growth can increase working-capital requirements. Inventory often has to be purchased before it is sold, while payroll, rent, freight, advertising, insurance, utilities and other operating expenses continue through the retail cycle. Vendor credit can help bridge that period. That is one of its legitimate purposes.
The relevant question is whether the supplier recognizes when its role in financing that cycle is getting larger.
FMCA members’ recent comments illustrate why simply looking at whether an invoice is technically past due may not tell the whole story. One member was paying closer attention to customers leaving long gaps between payments; another reported seeing some customers make payments primarily when they needed another sold order released.
The aging category can look similar. The behavior behind it can be very different.
Payment behavior can provide important clues about how a customer is managing cash. It is not conclusive by itself, but changes in timing, consistency and communication can add useful context.
“They’ve Always Been Good” Is Valuable Information. It Is Not the Only Information.
Longstanding relationships matter. Historical payment performance matters. Trust matters. A customer that has paid well for years has earned something a new account has not: a record.
But history answers a particular question:
How has this customer performed under the conditions that existed before now?
It cannot completely answer another:
What does today’s information tell us about the exposure being considered today?
A customer can retain the same ownership, stores and management while its economics change. Costs rise. Margins narrow. Inventory turns slow. A lender tightens availability. A store closes. Another opens. For example, payments that historically arrived in 35 days may begin arriving in 40, then 45. Communication becomes less consistent. One payment promise slips. Then another.
Each event may have an entirely reasonable explanation. The combination may tell a different story.
Before Market: Prepare for Larger Vendor Credit Exposure
High Point Market credit preparation begins before the showroom gets busy. Before Market, the job is preparation. During Market, the job is connection. Both begin with the individual account.
Preparing for Market does not require reviewing every customer from the ground up. It requires identifying the accounts where a strong Market could materially change exposure.
Which customers are already carrying larger-than-normal balances? Which have slowed modestly over several months? Where are payment gaps becoming longer? Which accounts have had ownership, management or store changes? Where are larger programs expected? Which prospects could become meaningful new accounts quickly?
The purpose is not to create a list of customers to reject. It is to know where another piece of information could materially improve the decision before the showroom gets busy.
Before Market, Sales can identify the accounts likely to expand. Credit can review current exposure and payment behavior. Collections can surface recent conversations. Finance can flag concentration or margin concerns. Operations can identify unusual order or shipping patterns. Management can decide who has authority to approve meaningful exceptions.
Before Market, know which accounts could turn a good order into a bigger capital decision.
When that work is done in advance, the company can move faster during Market—not slower. A larger order can be evaluated in context while the opportunity is still in front of the team.
During Market: Connect Sales and Credit Before Exposure Grows
Market creates information in real time. Salespeople should not become credit investigators, but they often hear things Credit may never hear unless someone passes them along.
A retailer talks about opening another store. Perhaps a longtime controller has left, or a second generation is taking over a family business. Ownership may be changing. Another customer mentions switching banks. One location is closing while another is expanding. An account that usually purchases conservatively suddenly wants a much larger program.
None of those facts automatically means the account is stronger or weaker. But each can change an assumption behind the exposure being considered.
At the same time, Credit may know that the account is already carrying an unusually high balance, paying several days more slowly, leaving longer gaps between payments or requiring more follow-up than it did six months ago. Collections may be hearing explanations for payment delays. Finance may see margin or concentration pressure. Operations may see expedited requests, unusual shipping patterns or a sudden increase in order volume.
Information becomes more useful when it crosses departmental lines before the exposure is created.
The communication should work in both directions. Sales should bring new customer information back to Credit, and Credit should give Sales useful account context before expectations are set with the customer.
A two-minute conversation while an order is still being discussed can be far easier than unwinding a promise after the fact.
The supplier sees the customer most clearly when Sales, Credit, Finance, Operations and Collections connect the pieces.
That is not Credit slowing down Sales. It is the company acting on a more complete account-level view. Better High Point Market credit decisions come from connecting those account-level signals while the opportunity is still being discussed.
Why FMCA Was Built Around the Account
From the Furniture Credit Clinics to FMCA
In 1961, Wallace Taylor and other furniture credit professionals were working with a limitation that still sounds familiar today.
No individual supplier could see the entire credit picture alone.
A manufacturer knew how a customer paid its own company. What it could not easily know was the factual historical payment experience other suppliers were having with that same customer.
The early Furniture Credit Clinics in Virginia, western North Carolina and High Point grew from that need and ultimately became the Furniture Manufacturers Credit Association.
The information did not make the decision for the supplier. It added another piece of the picture so each company could make a better-informed independent decision.
Member Helping Member: Another Account-Level View
High Point Market credit decisions can also benefit from another appropriate source of context: A supplier today has access to vastly more information than a furniture credit manager could have imagined in 1961. That is a tremendous advantage. But it does not mean there is one perfect source—or that all useful information sits inside the Credit Department.
Own A/R history
Financial information
Commercial credit sources
Sales intelligence
Collections experience
Industry vendor-credit experience
FMCA has long described the concept as turning on additional lights. Adding another light does not require turning off the one already illuminating the room. The company’s own receivable history remains essential. Financial information, commercial sources, Sales intelligence and collection experience each add a different perspective.
Member Helping Member adds another layer: factual historical vendor-credit experience, along with the broader professional experience and knowledge of credit people who understand the customers and business realities of the home furnishings industry.
That shared experience can help a member recognize a pattern, confirm a trend, frame a better question or see something its own ledger cannot show. It does not replace the company’s own information, policies or judgment.
No single source tells the entire story. The value comes from turning on more lights—and connecting what they reveal.
What One Supplier Cannot See Alone
Today, FMCA member companies provide monthly accounts-receivable information supporting an industry-specific Credit Interchange network covering more than 35,000 retailers and designers throughout the United States and Canada. FMCA’s community brings together the shared experience and knowledge of more than 70 member companies and over 300 credit professionals.
The purpose is not collective decision-making. It is better-informed independent decision-making.
FMCA’s customer-specific interchange activities focus on permitted factual, historical credit information. Members independently establish their own prices, terms, financing rates, credit limits, discounts, policies and decisions about whether to do business with any customer. FMCA does not make or recommend those decisions for its members.
The goal is not to replace judgment. It is to give judgment more to work with.
Good Credit Is Not About Eliminating Risk
High Point Market credit management is not about eliminating risk. Credit does not exist to eliminate risk.
If the goal were to eliminate open-account receivable exposure, the policy would be simple: cash before delivery.
It would also eliminate a great deal of perfectly good business.
Successful suppliers take risk. They extend terms and support growth. Good customers receive accommodations when circumstances justify them, and strong relationships may last decades.
The discipline lies not in refusing risk. It lies in understanding how much risk is being taken, why it is being taken and whether the available information continues to support it.
Sometimes additional information confirms that the customer deserves more capacity. In other cases, it suggests growing the relationship more gradually. Or it uncovers a question nobody had thought to ask.
All three outcomes have value.
Credit’s contribution is not the word “no.” It is helping the company turn opportunity into profitable, collectible business.
The Order Is Only the Beginning of the Return
High Point Market will produce introductions, partnerships, placements and orders. Those are important measures of success.
But every order written on terms still has one transformation left to make.
The Receivable Still Has to Become Cash
The second decision
The receivable still has to become cash.
Only then have the investments made before and during the sale completed their cycle—the design, product development, sourcing, manufacturing, importing, warehousing, freight, showroom expense, travel, sales effort and vendor credit.
How much good business can we write—and how much supplier capital should stand behind it?
What Has Not Changed
Sixty-five years ago, Wallace Taylor and other furniture credit professionals recognized that their own view of a customer was valuable but incomplete.
The same principle applies before and during Market today: start with what your company knows, connect what Sales, Credit and the rest of the organization are seeing, add factual experience and knowledge from appropriate outside sources, and then make your own decision.
Turn on another light. See more of the customer. Then make your own decision.
The industry has changed enormously since 1961. The technology has changed. Market has changed. The sources of risk have changed.
But the capital behind the order is still real.
And the value of understanding where that capital is going has not.
The Tools Have Changed. The Mission Hasn’t.
Before and During Fall Market, Put Another Light on the Customer
High Point Market credit decisions are stronger when suppliers can add industry-specific vendor-credit information to the tools they already use. FMCA helps manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and factoring firms add industry-specific vendor-credit information, member experience and practical credit resources to the tools they already use.
Use the FMCA contact form to request membership information or to ask about arranging a brief showroom visit by appointment during Fall High Point Market.
The Capital Behind the Order: A Fall High Point Market Credit Perspective
The Capital Behind the Order
Vice President & General Manager
Furniture Manufacturers Credit Association
Fall High Point Market • October 17–21, 2026
High Point Market credit decisions deserve the same attention as product, placement and sales opportunities. When the home furnishings industry gathers in High Point this October, most of the attention will naturally be on opportunity.
New collections. New accounts. Expanded placements. Larger programs. New store openings. Fresh introductions for established customers.
That is what Market is supposed to create.
Across more than 11.5 million square feet of showroom space and 2,000 exhibitors, retailers will spend five days deciding which products, suppliers and programs deserve their attention—and their investment.
Those decisions are connected. Before Market, suppliers can identify the accounts where a larger order could materially change exposure. During Market, they can keep new information moving between Sales, Credit, Finance, Operations and Collections while orders are being discussed.
A Sale on Terms Is More Than a Sale
Consider a $100,000 order.
From the sales side of the supplier’s business, the headline is easy: $100,000 in new business.
But if the merchandise is sold on open terms, the transaction does not end when the order is accepted—or even when the goods ship. By that point, the supplier has manufactured or purchased the product, carried inventory, paid operating expenses, perhaps paid freight and delivered the merchandise. The customer has the goods, while the supplier still waits for the cash.
Instead, it has an account receivable.
There is nothing unusual about that arrangement. Vendor credit has helped commerce move for generations. It allows good customers to purchase merchandise, manage working capital and grow without paying cash before every delivery. For suppliers, terms can strengthen relationships and make sales possible that might otherwise never occur.
Until the receivable becomes cash, part of the supplier’s capital remains committed to the transaction. So the question behind a Market order is larger than Can we make this sale?
There is another:
There Is Opportunity Heading Into Market
Suppliers are heading into Fall Market with legitimate reasons to look for opportunity.
Smith Leonard’s latest available Furniture Insights, published September 4 and covering June industry results, reported residential furniture orders 11% ahead of June 2025, bringing first-half 2026 orders 4% above the comparable period last year. June shipments were 3% higher year over year and backlogs were 11% higher, while year-to-date shipments remained even with 2025.
The broader economy also remains resilient. The Bureau of Economic Analysis’ September 30 annual update estimated real U.S. GDP growth at a 2.2% annual rate in the second quarter. In August, consumer spending increased 0.9% in current dollars and 0.6% after inflation.
But the same data show why an industry-wide improvement is not an account-level all-clear. PCE inflation remained 3.4% above a year earlier, core PCE inflation was 3.0%, and inflation-adjusted disposable personal income was unchanged for the month. Existing-home sales also remained restrained, running at a 3.98 million annual pace in August with 4.9 months of inventory.
One retailer may be gaining share. Another may be stable. Another may be selling merchandise while quietly experiencing more pressure on cash, margin or working capital.
An industry statistic cannot tell a supplier which customer is which. High Point Market credit decisions still have to be made account by account.
High Point Market Credit Starts at the Account Level
A national order increase cannot tell a supplier whether a particular retailer is gaining share. Housing statistics cannot tell you whether an individual dealer’s inventory is turning. Consumer-spending data cannot tell you whether one customer’s cash position is improving. And a strong Market order does not, by itself, tell you how comfortably the customer can support the resulting obligation.
That is why FMCA’s recent Credit Risk Pulse matters. It gives us a view of what credit professionals are seeing one account at a time rather than asking a national statistic to answer a customer-level question.
FMCA’s August pulse included 22 anonymous member credit professionals. It was a member pulse, not a statistically representative survey of the entire industry, so the counts matter as much as the percentages.
What members described was not universal deterioration. Some customers remained strong. Some continued paying much as they always had. The changes were concentrated in particular accounts and particular behaviors.
That is not Credit arguing against Sales. It is an argument for understanding the capital being committed when the company sells more.
A Larger Order Can Change the Decision Without Changing the Customer
A High Point Market credit decision can change materially even when the customer itself has not changed.
Suppose an established customer normally carries $50,000 of exposure with a supplier. The relationship is good. The retailer has paid acceptably. Sales knows the account well. Credit knows its history.
Then Market goes exceptionally well. Several introductions connect. The customer expands a program. Perhaps another location is involved. By the end of the conversation, projected exposure could rise from $50,000 to $125,000.
This was one of the central ideas behind FMCA’s first Credit & Risk Outlook. Commercial decisions rest on assumptions. A selling price assumes a certain cost. An inventory commitment assumes demand. A credit limit assumes that a customer will generate sufficient cash to meet its obligations.
Business has always required decisions to be made without perfect information. The problem arises when an important assumption changes while the decision built upon it does not.
Market can increase exposure in an afternoon. The information supporting that exposure needs to keep pace.
Growth Can Be Good News—and Still Change Working-Capital Needs
An unusually large order should not automatically be interpreted as either reassuring or alarming. A retailer experiencing genuine growth may need substantially more merchandise. That is exactly the kind of customer a supplier wants to grow with.
But growth can increase working-capital requirements. Inventory often has to be purchased before it is sold, while payroll, rent, freight, advertising, insurance, utilities and other operating expenses continue through the retail cycle. Vendor credit can help bridge that period. That is one of its legitimate purposes.
The relevant question is whether the supplier recognizes when its role in financing that cycle is getting larger.
FMCA members’ recent comments illustrate why simply looking at whether an invoice is technically past due may not tell the whole story. One member was paying closer attention to customers leaving long gaps between payments; another reported seeing some customers make payments primarily when they needed another sold order released.
Payment behavior can provide important clues about how a customer is managing cash. It is not conclusive by itself, but changes in timing, consistency and communication can add useful context.
“They’ve Always Been Good” Is Valuable Information. It Is Not the Only Information.
Longstanding relationships matter. Historical payment performance matters. Trust matters. A customer that has paid well for years has earned something a new account has not: a record.
But history answers a particular question:
It cannot completely answer another:
A customer can retain the same ownership, stores and management while its economics change. Costs rise. Margins narrow. Inventory turns slow. A lender tightens availability. A store closes. Another opens. For example, payments that historically arrived in 35 days may begin arriving in 40, then 45. Communication becomes less consistent. One payment promise slips. Then another.
Each event may have an entirely reasonable explanation. The combination may tell a different story.
Before Market: Prepare for Larger Vendor Credit Exposure
High Point Market credit preparation begins before the showroom gets busy. Before Market, the job is preparation. During Market, the job is connection. Both begin with the individual account.
Preparing for Market does not require reviewing every customer from the ground up. It requires identifying the accounts where a strong Market could materially change exposure.
Which customers are already carrying larger-than-normal balances? Which have slowed modestly over several months? Where are payment gaps becoming longer? Which accounts have had ownership, management or store changes? Where are larger programs expected? Which prospects could become meaningful new accounts quickly?
The purpose is not to create a list of customers to reject. It is to know where another piece of information could materially improve the decision before the showroom gets busy.
Before Market, Sales can identify the accounts likely to expand. Credit can review current exposure and payment behavior. Collections can surface recent conversations. Finance can flag concentration or margin concerns. Operations can identify unusual order or shipping patterns. Management can decide who has authority to approve meaningful exceptions.
When that work is done in advance, the company can move faster during Market—not slower. A larger order can be evaluated in context while the opportunity is still in front of the team.
During Market: Connect Sales and Credit Before Exposure Grows
Market creates information in real time. Salespeople should not become credit investigators, but they often hear things Credit may never hear unless someone passes them along.
A retailer talks about opening another store. Perhaps a longtime controller has left, or a second generation is taking over a family business. Ownership may be changing. Another customer mentions switching banks. One location is closing while another is expanding. An account that usually purchases conservatively suddenly wants a much larger program.
None of those facts automatically means the account is stronger or weaker. But each can change an assumption behind the exposure being considered.
At the same time, Credit may know that the account is already carrying an unusually high balance, paying several days more slowly, leaving longer gaps between payments or requiring more follow-up than it did six months ago. Collections may be hearing explanations for payment delays. Finance may see margin or concentration pressure. Operations may see expedited requests, unusual shipping patterns or a sudden increase in order volume.
The communication should work in both directions. Sales should bring new customer information back to Credit, and Credit should give Sales useful account context before expectations are set with the customer.
A two-minute conversation while an order is still being discussed can be far easier than unwinding a promise after the fact.
That is not Credit slowing down Sales. It is the company acting on a more complete account-level view. Better High Point Market credit decisions come from connecting those account-level signals while the opportunity is still being discussed.
Why FMCA Was Built Around the Account
From the Furniture Credit Clinics to FMCA
In 1961, Wallace Taylor and other furniture credit professionals were working with a limitation that still sounds familiar today.
A manufacturer knew how a customer paid its own company. What it could not easily know was the factual historical payment experience other suppliers were having with that same customer.
The early Furniture Credit Clinics in Virginia, western North Carolina and High Point grew from that need and ultimately became the Furniture Manufacturers Credit Association.
The information did not make the decision for the supplier. It added another piece of the picture so each company could make a better-informed independent decision.
Member Helping Member: Another Account-Level View
High Point Market credit decisions can also benefit from another appropriate source of context: A supplier today has access to vastly more information than a furniture credit manager could have imagined in 1961. That is a tremendous advantage. But it does not mean there is one perfect source—or that all useful information sits inside the Credit Department.
FMCA has long described the concept as turning on additional lights. Adding another light does not require turning off the one already illuminating the room. The company’s own receivable history remains essential. Financial information, commercial sources, Sales intelligence and collection experience each add a different perspective.
Member Helping Member adds another layer: factual historical vendor-credit experience, along with the broader professional experience and knowledge of credit people who understand the customers and business realities of the home furnishings industry.
That shared experience can help a member recognize a pattern, confirm a trend, frame a better question or see something its own ledger cannot show. It does not replace the company’s own information, policies or judgment.
What One Supplier Cannot See Alone
Today, FMCA member companies provide monthly accounts-receivable information supporting an industry-specific Credit Interchange network covering more than 35,000 retailers and designers throughout the United States and Canada. FMCA’s community brings together the shared experience and knowledge of more than 70 member companies and over 300 credit professionals.
FMCA’s customer-specific interchange activities focus on permitted factual, historical credit information. Members independently establish their own prices, terms, financing rates, credit limits, discounts, policies and decisions about whether to do business with any customer. FMCA does not make or recommend those decisions for its members.
Good Credit Is Not About Eliminating Risk
High Point Market credit management is not about eliminating risk. Credit does not exist to eliminate risk.
If the goal were to eliminate open-account receivable exposure, the policy would be simple: cash before delivery.
It would also eliminate a great deal of perfectly good business.
Successful suppliers take risk. They extend terms and support growth. Good customers receive accommodations when circumstances justify them, and strong relationships may last decades.
The discipline lies not in refusing risk. It lies in understanding how much risk is being taken, why it is being taken and whether the available information continues to support it.
Sometimes additional information confirms that the customer deserves more capacity. In other cases, it suggests growing the relationship more gradually. Or it uncovers a question nobody had thought to ask.
All three outcomes have value.
The Order Is Only the Beginning of the Return
High Point Market will produce introductions, partnerships, placements and orders. Those are important measures of success.
But every order written on terms still has one transformation left to make.
The Receivable Still Has to Become Cash
Only then have the investments made before and during the sale completed their cycle—the design, product development, sourcing, manufacturing, importing, warehousing, freight, showroom expense, travel, sales effort and vendor credit.
What Has Not Changed
Sixty-five years ago, Wallace Taylor and other furniture credit professionals recognized that their own view of a customer was valuable but incomplete.
The same principle applies before and during Market today: start with what your company knows, connect what Sales, Credit and the rest of the organization are seeing, add factual experience and knowledge from appropriate outside sources, and then make your own decision.
Turn on another light. See more of the customer. Then make your own decision.
The industry has changed enormously since 1961. The technology has changed. Market has changed. The sources of risk have changed.
But the capital behind the order is still real.
And the value of understanding where that capital is going has not.
Before and During Fall Market, Put Another Light on the Customer
High Point Market credit decisions are stronger when suppliers can add industry-specific vendor-credit information to the tools they already use. FMCA helps manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and factoring firms add industry-specific vendor-credit information, member experience and practical credit resources to the tools they already use.
Use the FMCA contact form to request membership information or to ask about arranging a brief showroom visit by appointment during Fall High Point Market.
Connect • Protect • Collect
Primary/current sources used in this article include Smith Leonard Furniture Insights (June 2026 industry data); U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Income and Outlays (August 2026); the BEA September 30 third estimate of second-quarter GDP; National Association of REALTORS®, Existing-Home Sales (August 2026); and High Point Market Authority. FMCA member-pulse findings and historical material are from FMCA’s own 2026 research and anniversary records.