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Are you tired of your customers and clients using you as a bank?

Sick of hearing “the cheque is in the mail, line?”

Are you not quite sure of where to go after trying to collect your overdue accounts and not getting anywhere?

Even if your outstanding accounts are small they all add up, especially in a small home based business, this can mean the difference in succeeding or failing. At Outstanding Accounts Recovery Ltd we feel that any account that is outstanding is one too many.

What steps should you take in collecting your accounts before they get to the final stage?

1. Get your invoices out as early as possible. Not many people appreciate receiving an invoice a month after the job was completed, a lot of the time the invoice needs to be charged out to their customers so getting them out late will usually mean you will be paid 2 months after the job is completed. Try to get the invoice to the customer the same day as the job was completed, this will ensure prompt payment.
    
2. Give your customers a courtesy call a couple of days before the account is due to see if everything is fine with the account due and whether the account has been approved for payment. Remember to do this as nicely as possible, you are not collecting the account at this stage, you are only doing a friendly reminder that you are expecting the account to be paid. This gives you a chance to get on the friendly side of the accounts payable person, and believe me this can make a huge difference!
    
3. Think about when you pay your accounts. If you pay yours at the end of every month, then you have to really expect that most business’s carry out the same practice. As it would be great to think that everyone paid their accounts on the 20th of the month, this doesn’t always happen and it is common practice that most business’s pay at the end of the month.
    
4. If your customers have not paid by the end of the month, start calling. Find out when the account is expected to be paid, keep notes on the customers file so there are no discrepancy over what has been said and promised. If they say they can not afford to pay the account then lodge it. A lot of businesses use this to stall paying as most people do not know what to do after this is said.
    
5. Send a final invoice explaining that if this account is not paid then it shall be sent to your collection company.
    
6. Follow up on the account, if they have not paid it with in a week then lodge the account. Don’t muck around! An account that is 60 days overdue is too overdue!