A sale is not a sale until you have been paid. So why do so many businesses leave debt outstanding for weeks and months. Your customer is using you as a bank if you do this!
We will always provide our clients with a list of customers who owe them and highlight any that seem significantly old. Sometimes we don't get a response and the old invoice remains unpaid. At year end we make sure we do get a response so that we know that the debt is being followed up or that it should be written off.
It is so much easier if you can keep on top of who owes you by checking the outstanding ones and regularly contacting your customer for payment. Your customer will soon get annoyed and want to stop you ringing so they will pay you. But they may not and at some point you need to use a debt collector to get the money which is rightfully yours.
Sometimes you may get an inkling that the company isn't going to pay you at all and then you definitely need to use a debt collector.
Just this week we have passed two debts to a debt collection company that we have used a few times over the years. The debt for one company was just one and half months past its due date but the business owner kept being fobbed off that he would be paid on Friday, then Monday, etc, etc, before guessing that it probably wasn't going to be paid at all. We passed the debt to the local Debt Collection Agency that we use in the morning and by the afternoon the business owner had been paid what was due! The Debt Collection Agency are now chasing payment of the late payment fee and interest chargeable.
The other debit is an individual who continually ignores the request for payment and has done so for 18 months. That debt takes the Debt Collection Agency longer to process but they are much more likely to get payment than we are.
Each of us has skills in particular areas and debt collection is best passed to those that know the law and how best to approach individuals and companies for payment. Some years ago this Debt Collection Agency set up a payment plan for a £25,000 debt and it was paid in full in just a few weeks despite the fact that the company was in financial difficulties.
So if you are struggling to get paid by a customer use the skills of someone who does exactly that as their job. Yes it costs, but being paid something is better than nothing!
