| Danny Clements, Printing.com - Ashford | ||
Danny @ Printing.com - Ashford outsourced his credit control to us just over a year ago. He continues to be impressed with our service, as his e-mail below bears out.
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-----Original Message----- From: Ashford [mailto:ashford@printing.com] Sent: 07 May 2008 10:04 To: 'Louise Green' Subject: RE: BodyGold
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We got a fantastic testimonial from one of our newest customers - Hamza Whitmore from Encoded. They have only been a customer for 4 weeks and we have already had a significant impact on his cash flow.
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From: Hamza Whitmore [mailto:h.whitmore@encoded.co.uk]
Sent: 06 May 2008 17:29
To: 'Pam Nye'
Cc: 'Jamie O'Connell'
Subject: RE: Monthly Management Report
Many thanks Pam,
A £20,000 drop in overdue balances is a wonderful testament to the work you have done in the last 4 weeks. Thank you ever so much, I am very impressed!
Kind regards,
Hamza
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Thanks for reading.
Jamie O "Making Your Cash Flow"
We have just added a "FREE DEBT COLLECTION" promotion on our website
I know what you're thinking:
This is a genuine offer.
For further information on our debt collection services, please visit our website
Thanks for reading.
Jamie O "Making Your Cash Flow"
In order to improve our position within the outsourced credit control market place and to capitalise on our current growth, we are making you an unbelievable offer!
For customers that sign up for our outsourced credit control service, we are giving a months worth of credit control completely free of charge.
I know what you're thinking
This is a genuine offer.
For further information on all of our services, please visit our website
Many Thanks,
Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"
I have just set up a new Blog called "Entrepreneur Diaries"
The plan is to update my "daily diary" with precisely what I have been doing - you will experience my highs, my lows and my mediocre days. I intend to update this in "real time", so you can follow my progress as it happens
The idea behind this is for new and existing entrepreneurs to learn from my experiences. That's not to say I know everything; far from it in fact. I am learning new things each day and it is because I am open to learning new things that I will succeed. I am looking for other entrepreneurs to post their experiences on this blog in order that we can help each other.
My diaries will be a frank and honest appraisal of my day - it will be a no holds barred diary. This blog is not a resource on "how to become and entrepreneur". It will be written from the heart.
Most business blogs that I have looked at all seem to be run by egotistical people that want the world to know how clever they are. This will certainly not be my approach
At the moment I am a relatively unknown entrepreneur, but, my business is about to be launched into orbit, so, expect to hear a lot about me in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Jamie O'Connell - "Making Each day Matter"
I am going to start this article of simply by saying "WOW"
We have had the busiest 2 weeks since I set up my business in January 2001. We have had an unprecedented 10 new outsourced credit control enquiries from our website in the last 2 weeks. The reasons for this are a combination of:
Whilst on the one hand I am not happy about the prospect of a recession looming, it does mean that my business should do prosper
In a recession, when for most businesses new customers are thing on the ground, existing customers do not have money to pay you and as a result of this your turnover and ultimately your profit reduces, most companies will then look to:
Reacting to a recession after it has hit may be too late. The time to act is now and most forward thinking companies are doing just that - hence the number of enquiries we are getting.
If you don't want to be a victim of the downturn in the economy, you too, need to get in contact with us "NOW"
Please visit our website for details of all of the services that we offer.
Many Thanks,
Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"
Since launching our new "Sage Line 50 - It Can Handle Credit Control" service on 31st January, we have had lots of interest and enquiries through our website and through my Networking Colleagues @ BNI
I think we are on to something here. There is obviously a huge market for this service. Most canny business owners don't want to spend £1,000's on software to handle their credit control. It makes far more sense to keep what you have got and use that. In this case: Sage line 50.
I have spent years researching and reviewing Credit Control Software and frankly I was not impressed with what I saw. Don't get me wrong when the software is demonstrated it looks fantastic. Typically, the sales person will demonstrate all of the "sexy parts" You know what I mean - all of the parts of the software that look great but deliver nothing in real terms.
Having run my own credit control agency for the last 7 years, I do know what I am talking about and I also know specifically what I need the software to do. The Credit Control software that I reviewed would have cost me anywhere between £10,000 to £30,000 and would you believe none of the packages gave me what I needed - every package meant a compromise on my part. Was I prepared to compromise? No way - compromise is not a word that rests easy with me, especially if I am being asked to spend a huge amount of money.
As a Credit Control Agency, we undertake the credit control on behalf of our customers on an outsourced basis - this is our core business. Therefore, our requirements from any peace of software are very simple indeed:
You get the picture.
Using the above criteria, I spent 2 years looking at how we could get the best from Sage Line 50 and at last we are there.
We now use Sage Line 50 to manage the credit control function for our customers. The process works very well, I did not have to compromise and neither did I have to spend £1'000's.
If as a Credit Control Agency, we can use Sage Line 50, to undertake credit control, then any business can. We just need to show you what to do.
Our "Sage Line 50" page has become one of the most popular entry pages on our website since its launch. Mike Perk and his team of world Wide Creative (Our Web Design & Web Marketing Co) have been truly amazing at helping to drive traffic to our website. If you need a great looking website and help with driving traffic to your site, you need to speak with World Wide Creative - I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending them to you. Since the launch of our new website, our rankings within Google have improved beyond my wildest dreams and this is all down to the great work that WWC have done.
If you are looking to outsource your credit control and you use a fairly generic search term like "Credit Control" within Google, we are the first "Outsourced Credit Control provider" on the list. When you can consider that there are almost 13,000,000 hits for "Credit Control" I am very proud that we are at the top.
If you put in a more specific term, such as, "Outsourced Credit Control", although we are 5th on the list, when you strip out irrelevant companies that do not provide outsourced credit control, we are 3rd in real terms.
Within the last 2 weeks, we have had an unprecedented 10 new credit control enquiries from our target market - The Lager smaller business / medium sized business. We will without doubt convert at least 5 of these. This means, that our website is currently outperforming all other forms of marketing and this is where of course most of our marketing budget will now be focused.
Many Thanks,
Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"
We have today launched a new service aimed at bringing Sage Line 50 into the 21st Centruy in terms of how we can make it handle your credit control.
Whilst Sage Line 50 continues to be the most popular accounts package for small and medium sized businesses. It is not particularly good when it comes to credit control.
We can show you how to get the best from Sage Line 50. The changes that we suggest will improve your cash flow and help your credit controller to better manage their time.
People will have you believe that in order to manage your credit control function effectively and properly, you would need to invest in dedicated credit control software. Not a cheap move - it will end up costing you circa £10 - £30K for an "all singing all dancing" credit control package.
We have come up with an inexpensive solution that gives you better functionality than most credit control software on the market today. Our solution will cost you £100's NOT £1,000's
All of the changes that we agree with you will provide sustainable improvements to your cash flow. They will also free up 30% to 50% of your credit controllers time so that they can focus on collection of the older debt on your ledger.
We will:
We will incorporate all changes within an easy to follow step-by-step process.
We simply charge you a nominal daily rate for the work that we do, or in some instances we will agree an all-inclusive charge at the outset.
Your views on this service would be much appreciated
For further information on any of our services, please visit our website
If your invoice payment terms are 30 days and you have debtors in your 60 day and older column, you should be looking to instruct a third party (such as ourselves) to collect these debts for you
It makes sense to use your internal resources to focus on collecting debts at the front end of your ledger (in the current, or 30 day column) and utilise our debt collection services to collect the older stuff.
Why? I hear you ask...
Quite simply, the longer a debt remains unpaid, the higher the risk there is of being faced with a bad debt. You need to consider this: Do you want to collect your debt, or face the possibility of another bad debt? Let's face it, if someone doesn't want to pay you they don't have to. The UK legal system doesn't exactly help you to collect your debts does it?
If you issue a County Court Claim, it will normally cost you dear both in financial terms and in time terms.
Example 1
If you get a County Court judgement, you can then send in the bailiffs. Ok, so the bailiffs knock on the door and do not get an answer. They will then simply return the warrant to you stating that they could not gain access. This leaves you with a debt recovery problem. In real terms you are now faced with trying to recover a much larger debt. If you had to resort to legal action to try to recover the original smaller debt, what makes you think you are able to recover the now larger debt? The fact is you won't and ultimately you will be faced with a higher value write off.
Example 2
You issue a County Court Summons, the debtor (defendant) puts in a defence to your claim. The judge considers the defence and decides to list the matter for a full hearing. Firstly, you will have to pay additional fees if the matter is listed for an actual hearing and secondly, you will have to attend court. The outcome of the case very much depends on who presents the more credible case on the day. In other words, if the judge likes you and you present your case in an organised, polite and professional way you will win the case. When you consider, there is a good chance that you may lose the case and therefore run the risk of having to pay the defendants costs, as well as having to potentially write off the debt, Was it a good decision to go to court in the first place?
Don't get me wrong I am not totally against using the county court procedure. In some cases, it makes perfect sense. In the main and in my own experience, use of the county court procedure purely as a debt recovery tool is not the best way of recovering your money.
Before you consider issuing county court proceedings, look at your case through the eyes of a third party. In other words, give your case a "reality check" So many cases fail due to lack of signed paperwork, or failure to provide proof that an order was placed by the debtor. When you look at your case you need to do so from a "Black & White" perspective. If there are a few "Grey" areas, I would suggest that you do not issue a county court claim.
If you want to recover your money, allow us (the experts) to do it for you. Our charges start from as little as £12.50 for our Letter before Action Service. This is a very small price to pay, when you consider that our chances of recovering your debt are far higher than yours.
You only have to look at our testimonials on our website to determine that it isn't only us that thinks we are the greatest debt collection company on earth - our customers do too!
Postal strikes can seriously affect your cash flow. There have been several reported cases of businesses going bust due solely to postal strikes.
Postal strikes will impede your cash flow for 2 reasons:
Firstly, we would suggest that you always e-mail your invoices to your customers. Not only does this save you time and effort, it also saves you money. Did you know that the true cost of sending an invoice by post to your customers is actually around £1.00? The cost of e-mailing invoices is virtually zero?
If you haven't done so already why not encourage all of your customers to pay you by BACS? The benefits of receiving payment by BACS are:
We could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Cheques are on their way out. Many retail outlets no longer accept cheques as a method of payment. If large retail outlets can refuse cheques why shouldn’t you? We would suggest that when you sign up a new customer you tell them how you wish to be paid rather than leaving it up to them to choose how to pay you. It works believe me it does. If you are to stand a good chance of being paid on time, it is important that you keep control of how you are paid. Credit Control is predominantly about control, choice, procedure and believe it or not psychology!
If the current postal strike (October 2007) is affecting you why not arrange to pick up cheques from your customers yourself, or failing that arrange for a courier to collect them for you? This opportunity will also allow you to touch base with your customers and possibly present you with a sales opportunity as well!
For further information about how we can help you please visit our website
Jamie O "Making Your Cash Flow"
Credit Control Solutions Launches new Service Today !
Worried about outsourcing your credit control? Then our “Virtual” Outsourced Credit Control Service is aimed specifically at you.
Our “Virtual” Credit Control Service has been designed to make significant improvements to your cash flow, but without the need to actually outsource.
The Service
You continue to manage your own credit control function as you do now. We simply set up an export routine for you enabling you to send us your aged debt and sales ledger data (or we can export your data through remote access) on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis (as you wish).
On receipt of your data, we simply send out letters on your behalf on our headed paper – it couldn’t be simpler. The letters are tailored to your requirements and are sent out in accordance with a timetable that has been agreed with you beforehand. As with all of our services, we appreciate that our customers like to be in control of precisely what is being done and when.
I know what you’re thinking – standard letters don’t work - right? WRONG - We have measured the response that we get to our standard letters and 70% of people will respond to a standard letter received from us. This means of course, that your credit controller will have to chase fewer customers for payment.
We find that a pro-active approach to credit control means that more customers will pay you on time. This is why we recommend that all of your invoices are verified at least 2 weeks before payment is due – we can do this for you by letter or by phone!
The Benefits
Any feedback regarding this service would be welcomed. For further information please visit our website
Jamie O "Making Your Cash Flow"
A few Facts on "No Collection, No Fee" Debt Collection
Did you know that whilst most debt collection companies appear to offer you something for nothing, in reality it simply isn't true. We all know that you get “nothing” for “nothing” in this life and if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is!
Typically, a “No Collection, No Fee” debt collection service actually means you will end up paying an exorbitant success fee to the debt recovery company if they recover your monies. This could end up being in excess of 40% of the value of monies recovered ! This is irrespective of the amount of work they have actually done. If for example, they made 1 telephone call to recover £1,000 for you, it will end up costing you £400 for the pleasure
In the debt collection industry “The good pay for the bad” In essence, this means that commission rates have to be very high in order to provide sufficient revenue to the debt collection company to cover all of the cases where they have not managed to recover any monies for their customer.
I believe that this way of charging does not represent good value to the customer. Why should you have to pay exorbitant commission to a debt collection company to cover all of the non-collectable cases on the debt collection companies’ books?
I am pleased to inform you that we are completely revolutionising the debt collection industry, by making a very simple change to the way in which we charge you to collect your debts. We simply make a nominal charge for the work that we do for you.
For more information on our debt collection services, please visit our website: Credit Control Solutions
Jamie O "Making Your Cash Flow"
Late Payment Legislation
In November 1998, the UK Government introduced legislation to give businesses a statutory right to claim interest from other businesses for the late payment of commercial debt. The UK was one of the first countries in the EU to introduce late payment legislation to help promote a culture of prompt payment.
Amended late payment legislation came into force in the UK on 7 August 2002, which fulfilled the UK’s obligations under the EC Directive on late payment and brought additional benefits to businesses.
For commercial contracts dated before 7 August 2002
All small businesses, with 50 or fewer employees, can use the rights given to them by the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 to claim interest retrospectively.
For commercial contracts dated from 7 August 2002
From 7 August 2002, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 was amended and supplemented to incorporate the features of European Directive 2000/35/EC on combating late payment in commercial transactions.
Under the revised legislation, all business owners and managers can claim reasonable debt recovery costs and can benefit from the simplification of the calculation of Statutory Interest. Additionally, small and medium sized enterprises can ask a representative body to challenge grossly unfair contract terms used by their customers that do not provide a substantial remedy for late payment of commercial debts.
The compensation entitlement varies in accordance with the size of the debt
The revisions to the legislation also include the simplification of the calculation of statutory interest. A reference rate is now used to determine the late payment interest rate, which is fixed for a six-month period.
For further information and help with calculating interest and debt recovery costs, please visit our website by clicking the following link Credit Control Solutions
There is only one thing worse than having no work - and that is having lots of work, but not being paid for it! To minimise the risk of this happening to you, you should take the following credit control precautions.
You should know the financial strength of the company you are doing business with or proposing to do business with. This is a good indication as to whether or not you are likely to be paid on time or even be paid at all! use of a good credit checking service will help you with this.
There must be proof that the customer to whom you supplied your goods or service actually placed an order with you. In an ideal world there will be a signed order, or a purchase order form the customer to you for purchase of the goods or service. In today’s “I want it now” society, getting a signed order is not always possible. An e-mail, Fax or letter from the customer to you or from you to the customer is just as good. The important thing is you must be able to demonstrate that an order has been placed.
You must always ensure that your customer is aware of your terms of business or sale before they do business with you. Including your terms of business on the back of your invoice is a good way of re-enforcing your terms, but, it cannot be your only method of hi-lighting your terms.
Always ensure that the details on your invoices are accurate, since inaccuracies will damage your credibility and will be used by the customer as an excuse for delaying payment. Please our website to see the rest of this article.
When you consider that performing a credit check could cost as little as £2.50, is it really not worth bothering with? Good credit control is all about being in control. If you do not know the financial strength of the company that you are doing business with are you really in control?
It is good practice to make credit enquiries for:
In the credit vetting process, you cannot afford to rely solely on the apparent size of the organisation. It is normally the larger organisations that fail to pay or fail to pay you on time.
Once you have decided to extend a customer credit terms, then set them a credit limit and notify them of both the limit and the general terms of trade upon which you are prepared to do business with them. Also, ensure that these terms are stated in your contract and on your invoices.
Withhold further credit from any customer who has exceeded his credit limit or whose account is significantly overdue. Alternatively make an arrangement to supply him with, say, £500 of extra work for every £1000 that he pays off his account.
Credit checking is not a “one-off” exercise, it should be continuously monitored and re-evaluated, taking account of both the customer's payment history with your own business and by regularly updating the externally available information.
Jamie O "Making Your Cash Flow"
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