Collection Tip: Patience vs. Payments

Patience vs. Payments

Unlike wine, collections do not improve with age.

We see a wide range in the age of overdue accounts that our clients list for collection.

90 Day accounts are popular, especially with our pre-collection service. But some clients keep unpaid accounts in their own office for a year or more, hoping for a miracle. From our experience this can result in collectable accounts becoming uncollectable.

We believe in miracles too, but it seems that for every miraculous payment there are numerous old accounts that “go bad” – when the customer is finally pushed to pay, there are problems or complications because the account is so old.

These problems may seem familiar: 

• The customer suddenly “remembers” problems with your product or service.
• The customer advises that he/she does not pay interest. You have financed the customer for nothing.
• Employees leave and customers claim certain deals and promises were made with a former employee.
• Your customer goes bankrupt, disappears, becomes very ill, or any of the multitude of other scenarios that render the account uncollectable.
• If you decide to take legal action, older accounts may be statute barred and your legal costs will be unrecovered on top of the balance already outstanding.
• Important documents can’t be located – they’ve been lost in the shuffle over time.
• You get frustrated and simply give up on older accounts.

 

 

The Bottom Line:

 

While some creditors wait patiently for a miracle, others are getting paid!

 

Contact us for more information or advice on how to balance patience vs. payments:

Email: Credit_AR_Guru@crmcanada.com
Toll Free: 1-800-267-0490

Check out our website for more information on end to end A/R solutions:

www.crmcanada.com