Peter Searle, chief executive of Spring, revealed his secret of improving cash flow — the "life blood of the company" and key to improving its bottom line to delegates at Recruiter's annual forum.

Searle described how a £3m investment in electronic billing and time sheets had increased the money in the company's bank account by £1.5m a day.

"I am £45m richer," added Searle, as he explained how the automated systems had reduced Spring's debtor days from 60 to 38 days.

Credit control was key, said Searle, and for that reason he considered the credit control staff as part of the sales team. "A deal is not done until collection has been made," he explained.

The automated systems allowed the company to manage its bad debts better, and provided complete management information. Searle said this financial efficiency gave Spring "a significant competitive advantage".

Searle told the audience that that improving your bottom line could be boiled down to one simple equation: "Spend less, Sell more equals an improved bottom line", although he admitted that in reality "it's a bit more complicated than that".

Searle said that one way for recruiters to improve profitability was to reduce the ratio of support staff (those who spend money) to sales staff (those who make money). He said Spring's current ratio was 1:4 but ideally this would be 1:7.

Searle said that key to many of these improvements had been the establishment of an in-house team to continually review all systems and processes. "Change is good," said Searle, but it was easier to push it through if staff were part of the change rather than having it imposed on them.

Searle said that selling more was about your people, and how you empower and motivate them, which can be done by having the right systems to help them access candidates quickly and simply. But it is also about continually improving your staff and showing them a career ladder they can climb up, he added.

Setting your company's core values is also important. Searle said that it wasn't important what those values were, only "that you believe in them and live them, and your staff do too".