How to prevent late payment with the Cahoots bespoke credit control Service

You work hard in your businesses to provide your clients with the goods and services they require. It can then be very frustrating if you do not get paid on time.

Cahoots Business consultants are very experienced when it comes to recovering monies owed to a business. With over 35 years experience in business, dealing with credit management, and debt recovery

Our customer base ranges from one man operations, and many small/ medium sized businesses. We have on board highly skilled credit controllers and we are confident; that they all possess the commercial acumen, technical ability that is required to do the job

We chase your overdue invoices as your credit control department and answer the phone as you do, so that your customers experience does not change. We are in daily contact with clients who want that service with management reports and updates.

We can help ease the burden of late payers, by offering two main services…

We offer a Debt Collection Service at an hourly rate no fee contract. We also can provide your business with a Credit Control Service to prevent the debt escalating in the first instance.

How much will the service cost?

The price for this service is calculated by the number of live debtors and any additional activities that are needed. The fee is an all inclusive monthly fee that is paid in arrears with no lengthy contracts. We have the ability through our staff to work directly from your computer systems, from the cloud or from a paper ledger. We will work with you to find a solution that best fits your business model.

Our service to you includes:

An effective credit control systems that we feel is important to the success of your business. Sometimes it is all about being organised when it comes to managing your businesses cashflow, and avoiding tying up valuable capital in your clients businesses.

Here are a few things that Cahoots will introduce into your business as part of our credit control service

Managing cash flow and your cash position is an absolutely vital area that you as the business owner should focus on as part of your business growth strategy. We will carry out a minor audit on the credit system you operate

Cahoots will carry out a Pre-check service on new customers

• Get a credit check on potential new customers to gauge their ability to pay before you sign them up and extend them any credit

• We will explain very clearly what the payment terms are, better still their credit record.

• We will create payment terms specific to your customers circumstances

• We can talk through the terms with each customer when signing them up for the purpose of clarity, new customers should in the first instance start on a Pro-forma basis

• To assist your cash flow position, we will ask customers to settle invoices electronically by Bacs or either via direct debit or through a monthly standing order with any balance settled at set intervals throughout the year

Once your businesses product or service is delivered

• Issue invoices promptly, communicating clearly what work or item has been delivered and the price

• Put in place a system to identify both invoices that have been raised and those that need chasing because they haven't been paid on time

For late payers and bad debts

• We will follow up on late payment the day an invoice falls as overdue, we won’t risk waiting to see what happens, getting customers into the habit of paying works.

• We will send friendly reminders to nudge customers that the account is now overdue

• We will have regular communications or meetings with the customers, bringing up the matter of payment politely.

• When we communicate with your customers we will get to understand if there is a reason why the invoice is overdue, and why they are experiencing financial difficulties

• For late payers, we will not offer them any further lines of credit, in fact we will put a stop on the work or service that you provide until they pay

• In particularly bad cases, we will consider adding expenses for debt recovery costs and interest to the amount due, it's your statutory right to charge 8% interest over base rate

• If the debt is long overdue and our follow up attempts have failed to secure payment then an option is to outsource it to a our legal debt recovery professionals

If a customer is in financial difficulty and struggling to make payment

• We will be empathetic to their position and consider offering them regular payment instalments for outstanding bills to help with their own cash position

For each customer, we will review their payment track record

• Set varying credit limits depending on each customers historical track record on payments

• Look at the option of offering discounts for early payments

• All of the above improves your business understanding of where you are at any given moment. Without this money in the bank, how can you run an effective business?

Contact us today in confidence info@wearecahoots.co.uk