Client FAQ

This is one of the core challenges we help businesses with every day.

The first step is to check whether the people and companies you do business with are creditworthy. Before dealing with them. That way, you significantly reduce bad debts.

Once you have approved a client, set them a credit limit and make sure they don’t exceed it. Stay on the look-out for potential early warning signs of future payment problems, including:

• change of payment method (e.g. moving from bank transfer to payment by cheque or cash),
• new bank details, which can suggest problems with previous banks,
• frequent changes of address.

We are experts in reducing your risk of non-payment and maximising liquidity: we get your cash fast while keeping your customers on side.

We can help in a way that suits you:

Handing over receivables management to us lets you concentrate on your core business. You will be safe in the knowledge that experts are taking care of your receivables.

Because we’ve done this thousands and thousands of times before, our expertise, experience and systems are refined to get more debts paid and faster – so you can benefit from more liquidity. For investments that grow your business, or even protect you from insolvency.

Don’t forget: we monitor customers who are insolvent now but may not be in the future. So as soon as they are able to pay you can receive money you had already given up hope on.

Litigation is expensive and you can be waiting a long time for a court ruling. We always try to settle the issue out of court first, and only consider court proceedings if that fails. Not only does this save money, but you usually get paid faster and can retain good relations with customers.

Our priority is getting your cash fast while maintaining good relations with your customers. Where appropriate, we negotiate realistic repayment plans that take into account customers’ financial circumstances. Over the years, we have refined our process and arrived at the following three phases.

• Written reminder We first contact the debtor by post. People often take letters from debt collection companies more seriously, so the reaction rate is higher.
• Telephone reminder If the first step doesn’t result in payment, we remind your customer by telephone or by other channels, such as a text message. We collect most debts in this phase.
• Legal action If all else fails, we will evaluate, in conjunction with you, potential legal action. Our extensive experience and knowledge enables us to advise you on whether legal action has a good chance of success.

Our exact process is determined by the individual case. If appropriate, we may adapt the above phases to best suit the case at hand.

Debt collection agencies are usually more successful because collection is their core activity. We have specialised know-how, human resources and technology.

In contrast, most small and medium-sized enterprises put accountants or sales agents in charge of debt collection. This extra task adds to the employee’s workload and is low down on their list of priorities. The results can be a low level of collection, or even an increasing amount of bad debt. We therefore strongly recommend using a dedicated collection agency. Let your employees concentrate on your core business. And what’s more: you’ll unlock more liquidity by minimising non-payment.

That depends on your wishes and needs. Our professionally-designed processes ensure we work hand in hand with the internal credit and collection department. Your departments can focus resources and energy on evaluation and selecting customers, and on the early stages of the collection process. We mainly concentrate on the later stages of the collection process, including both the pre-legal and legal steps, and helping you collect payments.

We periodically send you reports so you can check the status of your accounts. We can also send reports by email or by fax if required, so you can act quickly even if you outsource receivables management.