As a business owner, you work hard to gain new customers, explore their needs and deliver a solution that’s personalised to their goals.
On top of this, many entrepreneurs, sole traders and company directors also have to manage activity such as marketing, PR, human resources and many other factors surrounding how the business performs.
With all of this on your plate, the last thing you want to worry about is customers processing your invoices late or not paying them at all.
The problem with late payments
It’s a sorry state of affairs when people you’ve helped through your goods and services decide it’s acceptable to not pay on time. Whether it’s members of the public or B2B clients, their transaction with you involves the delivery of a product or service, followed by payment on or before a set date. Providing you’ve kept your side of the bargain, they should keep theirs.
The result of late payments can vary enormously, from reduced cash flow and lack of funds for making purchases and investments, to the late paying of your own suppliers and employees due to a negative bank balance. Then there are the bank fees and interest that come with going overdrawn, which only exacerbate the situation.
All of the above makes your job a lot harder than necessary and can also damage the reputation of your business.
What is credit control?
We work with all types of businesses on a regular basis to recover late, missed and inaccurate payments from their customers. It’s often a case that more instances of unpaid invoices will occur as a company grows, but it also applies to even the smallest businesses, many of which rely on timely payment in order to survive.
The only solution is to chase the debts, which takes a lot of time, patience and mental strength. Some businesses decide to hire an in-house credit control team to do this, with the downside being that it’s pretty expensive and sometimes doesn’t justify itself financially.
Why you should outsource your credit control
In an ideal world, credit control wouldn’t be required. However, it’s a valuable service that focuses on fairness and the rectifying of unfortunate circumstances that are beyond your control.
Our debt chasing specialists are highly skilled at conducting the process in a manner that’s uncompromising yet professional, ensuring that the proper routes are taken at all times. The result is the retrieval of payments owed, even if they’ve been hanging around for quite a while.
Preventing late payments
Even better than retrieving money owed to you is never having to chase it in the first place. We also offer a credit management system, which involves assessing the risk connected to potential customers before you begin a relationship with them. We also recommend how much credit to extend to them, tailoring each project according to the customer’s situation.
When credit management is in place, you also have the statutory right to add late payment interest and compensation charges to the debt. This means that if a customer pays a few months late, you receive the outstanding payment as well as a little extra to cover the stress and difficulties caused by the delay.
Get in touch
Tired of awkward conversations and poor cash flow caused by late payments? To find out more about credit control and credit management, call our Northern office on 01482 235575 or our London office on 0207 885 0605. Alternatively, you can fill in our contact form and one of our specialists will get back to you right away.