Once upon a time … THE DAY THE COMPLAINT IS SERVED ON THE CLIENT "Boy. Am I in big trouble. I never should've sold those pulleys without checking." NEXT DAY - "I forgot that I'd cancelled my products liability insurance." 2 DAYS LATER ON FIRST MEETING WITH LAWYER - “If I lose this case - [...]
Human Nature. When you feel that someone's been intentionally mean to you, it's natural to want to retaliate. That's why, when you're chasing slow payers you have to be EXTRA, extra careful with the words that you use and the attitude that you show. This delightful true story regarding exams at Cambridge University illustrates the [...]
This is how to collect unpaid invoices. Apply these three principles. Start Early. Always Be the Good Guy. Become Very Hard To Ignore. The following true story explains it well. -------------------- THE SITUATION In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for [...]
It's time for accountancy firms to muscle up to improve collections. Times are getting tougher. Money is tighter. Business slower. Legal costs are rising. Clients that used to pay on time are now paying later than normal. Out of trading terms. And those that used to pay late are now almost at a standstill. More [...]
Training debtors to pay starts before there's any debt! Several years ago we were asked by a small private secondary school to help them with the problem that they were having collecting payment of overdue school fees from some of the parents. It turned out that the problem was twofold; 1. the school was not [...]
It's important that clients know what a company's credit policy is but NOT what the debt collection procedures are that are used to to implement that policy. The Credit Policy should be highly visible to customers. On all relevant documentation ... engagement letters, terms of trade, quotations, contracts, invoice copies ...Debt Collection Procedures on the other [...]
If you want clients to pay their accounts on time, these are just some of the things you must do. The checklist below is by no means comprehensive but if all of these are implemented, you're well on the way to getting most of your invoices paid on time. 1 Create a written-down Collection Procedure; make [...]
When is it appropriate to take legal action? Depends on many factors. I was asked this in reply to a recent post in this blog - "How To Ask For An Account Payment". The normal answer, of course, is avoid taking legal action until you absolutely have to. Suing a slow paying debtor is normally [...]
This is the best debt collection method to adopt if you’re like most businesses who look at their Aged Trial Balance and say “Where on Earth do I start to sort all this out?”.If you want to collect all of your unpaid invoices, quickly, try this four-step debt collection method ...STEP ONE - Take a completely [...]
UPDATED - JUNE 2018 This post was originally written in 2011. (Slides in the links below have been updated to show the 2018 workshop slides) School Debt Collections. Schools have debt collection issues as well! I ran a seminar for several schools earlier this year called "Debt Collection Strategies For Schools". (This image has been [...]