"It's not rocket science" is one of those annoying clichés that invokes the urge to throw something at the person stating it. However, it's true that in many cases the solution to a problem can involve actions that are completely obvious.

I was struck by this thought at yesterday's BPIF Finance and Investment Conference. Marc O'Driscoll of Begies Traynor conducted a lively session on risk management, a topic that was clearly, and unsurprisingly, close to the hearts of many in the audience.

Begbies has a checklist of 130 different activities it tracks when monitoring companies for its Red Flag service. For firms keen to tackle the nightmare that is bad debt, I present his top warning signs that something is going wrong with a company - the "likely trend of distress":

• Accounts filed late/not filed
• Trend of deteriorating results
• Director resignations
• CCJs and winding up petitions
• Shareholders amended
• Change of addresses

 All of the above are completely obvious signals, of course, yet I'm sure companies with this sort of dubious history are running up bad debts even as I type.

One of the other actions highlighted by O'Driscoll was the need to check, check again, and then keep on checking. Most, if not all, businesses would make credit checks on a new customer, but not enough of them put the effort into subsequent monitoring. And talking of new customers, another obvious suggestion was to focus new business activity on healthy customers who can and do pay.

So, KISS (keep it simple stupid), another irritating cliché, but nowhere near as annoying as the malignancy of bad debt.