Accounts Management

---

A Different Approach to Debt Recovery

 

Here are a couple of ideas to help you manage one of the less popular jobs in business — collecting money!

 

Get paid up front!

It's been said the value of a service declines after delivery. It's not always possible, but you can still use this idea to help you break down some barriers and get creative.

 

Write a letter to accompany your invoice. A couple of key phrases that can help you greatly when writing the letter are "Thank you in advance?" and "so we can keep our paperwork down?". For example "Thank you in advance for attending to this quickly. It really does help us both reduce our paperwork pile and so be even more productive."

 

Much nicer than some of the other techniques out there, wouldn't you say? If you can't write a letter with absolutely every invoice you send, a pre-printed note or stamp on the statement works just as well.

 

Reconsider your terms

Including readout at the bottom of your invoices that shows terms of 90 days, 60 days, 30 days and current, actually gives your customers a message that you're prepared to accept a term of 90 days. Are you?

 

Test either or both of these ideas next time you're sending out invoices, and measure the results. You may be surprised!