Credit Control Solutions

Buy-One-Get-One-Free Debt Collection Promotion!

We have a “BOGOF” offer on the following debt collection services this month. 

Letter Before Action Service - We charge £12.50 + VAT to issue a letter before action for you. This includes; sending out the letter, making 1 follow up phone call and reporting back to you. For further information on this service please click here

Statutory Demand Service – We charge £60.00 + VAT to issue a Statutory Demand for Payment. This includes; posting the demand to the registered office address (or in the case of an individual, or unincorporated business, to their trading address, or home address), posting it to a Directors home address and emailing it to any number of email addresses, plus 1 follow up phone call and reporting back to you. For further information on this service, please click here

To be eligible for this offer you must email us here.

Jamieo “Making Your Cash Flow”

Special Facebook Promotion.!

The first 5 people who sign up to our Business Facebook Page from our newsletter, will receive 1 month free of charge on-line access to our credit checking service. Our credit check service is second to none and can be used to search any UK Limited Company, Unincorporated Business, or UK Director. Just to clarify, this offer is unconditional and can be used for as many credit reports as you require.

If you haven’t already subscribed to our newsletter and wish to do so to take advantage of this great offer, you will firstly need to sign up to our Facebook Page and then subscribe to our Newsletter by clicking here

So, if you wish to receive our free credit check offer:

1. Click our Facebook link above
2. subscribe to our Newsletter (if you haven’t already done so)
3. Finally, email us here to let us know and we will set you up and email logon details to you straight away.

Jamieo “Making Your Cash Flow”

Exclusions* This offer excludes existing credit check customers of CCS and is only open to new fans of our Facebook Page.

Free Credit Control Resources: Google (Update)

We are currently doing a debt collection job for our friends at Invicta Power Service and once again using Google has provided us with some invaluable information..!

We took on this job on 25th May 2010. We sent a Statutory Demand for payment to:

• The Registered Office Address
• The Directors Home Address
• and to several email addresses that we picked up from Google.

3 days after we had sent the demand, we received a telephone call from one of the hairdressing salons concerned. She acknowledged receipt of the demand and said that she would get the director to call me.

Needless to say, we never heard back from the director.

On 2nd June, I sent a chase up email to the Director and once again heard nothing back.

On 9th June, Invicta Power Service informed us that they had been contacted by the director and fixed up a meeting to discuss monies owed. At the meeting the debtor agreed to pay, but payment has not been forthcoming at the time of writing

Today 14th July 2010, I contacted the Director on his mobile phone and he "pretended" that he was not the debtor. When I pushed him, he became incredibly abusive F'ing & blinding etc. We thought this was funny and simply laughed at him. Anyway, I got my message across to him - i.e we would issue Winding up Proceedings against him if payment was not forthcoming.

After this telephone call, I informed our friends at Invicta Power Service of my telephone conversation with the debtor and said that it would be unlikely that we would recover the money for them on this occasion. The debtor is a wide boy etc.

After putting the telephone down, I took my own advice and started to do some research on Google. Even I was amazed at what I managed to uncover. It turns out the debtor:

• Received a 4 month suspended jail sentence for a physical assault of a Dr in Ashford, Kent.(incidentally, the Dr concerned was beaten up so badly that he can no longer practice as a Doctor)
• Is a Parish Counselor
• Is on "Linked In" and we happen to have several friends in common..!

The above information is very useful to me in debt collection terms, as, clearly I have established that the debtor has both an on-line & offline reputation to protect and we will obviously use this to our advantage.

Incidentally, our friends at Invicta Power Service paid us £60.00 + VAT to use our statutory demand service. For this service, we will:

• Issue a Statutory Demand for payment to several addresses and by email, fax etc
• Make one follow up phone call to try and secure payment.

In reality, we always do more work for our customers than we actually charge for. In this case, we have

• Issued the Statutory Demand for Payment.
• Sent 3 chase up emails
• Made 5 x phone calls to the debtor &
• Spoken with our friends at Invicta 3 times.

So, you know where to come for cost effective and added value debt collection

Jamieo "Making your cash flow"

I will name the debtor in due course, if we do not recover the debt, so that we can warn everybody in Kent not to do business with this guy/company

Free Credit Control Resources: Google

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “You can run, but you can’t hide” This saying is more true today in credit control & debt collection terms than it has ever been.

 

Anyone who is “anyone” has a web presence these days. This is especially true with companies and businesses. Companies & Businesses with any "nounce" will have a website at the very least. Most of them would also have jumped on the social networking bandwagon in some way shape or form. In addition to this, there are blogs, forums, discussion boards – I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

 

Before you do business with a prospect you should at the very least check them out on Google by searching both their company name and the name of the principle director. You will be amazed with the information you can find.

 

In addition to this, you should also check out all prospects using Companies House Webcheck Service – click here to be taken to an article that shows you how to use this service.

 

I will give you 2 recent examples that I have personally experienced that will reinforce how great Google is as a free credit control/debt collection resource.

 

Example 1

We are currently undertaking the credit control function for the trade body for independent record labels. Their customers are obviously in the music industry and therefore have a very large web presence: YouTube, MySpace, Facebook etc. One of their debtors that has owed them money since 2007 disappeared off of the face of the earth. We slowly but surely tracked him down using Google – we found them on practically all of the Social Media networks and eventually made contact with them through a generic email address that we found on the web. The result was: we received payment from this debtor a week ago.

 

Example 2

This example relates to a one-off debt collection job that we did a few weeks ago. The debt collection job related to search engine optimisation & on-line  marketing work done by our customer for the debtor in question. The debt owed was £950 We issued a Statutory Demand for Payment and sent it by post to the registered office address, the Directors home addresses, by fax, by email to named individuals and to generic email addresses that we found using Google. Contrary to popular belief, Statutory Demands do not need to be personally served – you merely need to prove that the debtor received the demand (I digress). Back on track, by using Google, we discovered that the Managing Director of the debtor company had a huge on-line presence and made regular posts on several forums, his blog etc. Perhaps the most important thing that we discovered though was that the Managing Director was also a Magistrate. In other words, this guy had a very big online & offline reputation to protect. We of course used this information to our advantage and received payment a few weeks ago.

 

The above are just 2 examples Google can be used in a variety of ways to help you with your credit control

 

For more useful hints & tips why not sign up to our credit control mailing list (sign up box towards top left of your screen)

 

Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"

Free Credit Control Resources: Companies House Webcheck Service

We are going to do a series of hints and tips on free credit control resources that are available to help you manage your credit control better. We are starting with Companies House today.

Using the Companies house webcheck service is a much under used resource that we are going to shout about from the roof tops in order to help reduce your exposure to bad debt…!.

Their webcheck service allows you to get lots of invaluable information on any UK Limited Company. You can check companies out by name or by using their company registered number. Even if you don’t know the precise name of the company, you can find them by simply typing in the first few letters of their name and tabbing through the list until you find them. Anyway, back on track….

By using the webcheck service you can find out basic information such as:

·   Date the company was incorporated (this is useful to help you assess whether or not you wish to do business with a new prospect. If it is newly incorporated, you may wish to ask for a deposit, or to put them on an automated form of payment, such as: Direct Debit or Continuous Payment Authority etc)

·   Company Type

·   Nature of Business (SIC Code)

·   Accounting Reference Date

·   Last Accounts Made up to

·   Next Accounts Due (This is very useful and will highlight if they are late filing their accounts. Normally, if accounts are filed late, this is a red flag and means that the company is in some form of financial difficulty)

·   Last Annual Return Made up to

·   Next Annual Return Due (This is also very useful and will highlight if they are late filing their annual return. If annual returns are filed late, again, this is a red flag and means that the company is more than likely in some form of financial difficulty)

All of the above information is free; you can however download copies of annual returns and company accounts directly from companies house website for a nominal fee. However, unless you are an accountant, it can be difficult to asses a companies creditworthiness from a set of accounts.

We would suggest that you always check out new customers using companies house webcheck service. This is better than not checking them out at all and will at least give you more of an idea as to their creditworthiness. If for example a prospect is late filing their accounts and or annual return, we would suggest that you check them out further by doing a credit check on them.

Free resources can be very useful, but, you do normally get what you pay for and if you pay nothing, you normally don’t get very much. Having said this, Webcheck is a useful service and without a doubt if used wisely, it will certainly help you to reduce your exposure to bad debt.

Far better though, is to credit check any new prospect before you do business with them. Credit Check existing customers at least once per year – especially if you have noticed a change in their payment habits, or, if they have started to trade with you more than usual, meaning of course that your risk of bad debt is a lot higher.

If you require further information on our credit checking service, please email us. We can give you online 24/7 access for a silly price, or, you can email us your list of debtors and we will check them all out for you and email you copies of the credit check reports, or you can use us for the odd credit check here and there – the choice is yours

  

Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"

Late Payment Legislation - is it Worth it?

Late Payment Legislation – is it Worth it?

As you can probably guess from the title, we are not huge fans of Late Payment Legislation, or to give it its proper name: “Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2002” Don’t get me wrong I am not completely against it and it certain cases it can and does work, but, when you look at the time involved in administering this legislation is it really worth it from a commercial perspective?

 

It sounds all great and wonderful and it makes it look as though the government is taking action against Late Payment, but, in reality are they really? Lets look at a few of the facts, through an example

 

Let’s say you had an invoice outstanding for £900 dated 31^st January 2010 on 30-day payment terms. For the purposes of this interest calculation the date today is: 23^rd May 2010

 

There is a useful interest calculator on the “Better Payment Practice Campaign” website which can be used to calculate statutory interest due in accordance with  “Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2002” or indeed for any contractual interest due in accordance with you terms of business/contract

 

Using the above interest calculator, it shows you are due £17.19 in interest. In addition to this you are also able to claim a one-off late payment compensation fee of £40.00, making a total of £57.19 to be claimed.

 

Here comes the tricky bit..! If you use Sage or another competent accounts package, there is a facility for you to calculate interest and automatically add it to accounts with an overdue balance. I am sure that you will also be able to use this function to add the late payment compensation fee too?. If not, you will either need to raise an invoice to your customer for the interest and late payment compensation fee, or journal it onto their account with you and write to them to let them know about it.

 

For the purposes of this example, let’s say you are using Sage Line 50 and choose to automatically add interest and the late payment compensation fee. Once you have added the fee, you will need to let your customer know about it, either by writing to them or sending them a statement. This is easy enough to do in Sage, but you must remember there are costs involved in taking these actions. Let’s say that you choose to write to the debtor to inform them. The cost of sending a letter will generally be circa £1.50 when you include all overheads etc

 

Ok, your customer receives your letter and completely ignores your claim for interest, but does pay you the £900.00 they owe you. This means a balance of £57.19 is left outstanding on the account. You will need to make a decision as to what actions you are going to take in respect of this small outstanding amount. Do you continue to chase this balance, thus potentially putting at risk future trading with your customer? Do you leave the balance outstanding and choose not to chase it? Questions, questions eh.

 

Whatever you decide to do, there is a big chance that you will end up having to write this balance off at some stage. This of course means more work for you – i.e. you will need to raise a journal and again this will be at a cost.

It is ok, if you only have a handful of accounts to manage, but, lets say you have 100 accounts on your ledger and 50 of them are charged late payment interest and late payment compensation, when you look at the amount of work involved in writing most of these small balances off is it really worth charging interest in the first place? Probably not?

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Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"

 

What Is Good Credit Control All About?

What is Good Credit Control all about?

In essence good credit control is all about making sure that everything you do within your company that impacts on getting paid is done properly and diligently, from making the initial contact with your prospect right through to sending them an invoice and of course all of the important steps in between.

 

Let me explain: You receive a new enquiry from a prospect. They ask you for a quote. Before providing them with a quote, you should credit check them to see whether or not they are a viable company and perhaps more importantly so that you know the legal entity you are dealing with. The quote you provide them with should be very detailed and include details of precisely what your prospect is getting for their money. It should also include your payment terms and what they have to do to accept your quote.

 

An order should then be signed. Again, the order should be very detailed about the product or service you are supplying, it should make reference to the quotation and once again it should re-enforce your rigorous payment terms and of course include all of your terms of business

 

Your prospect should also complete and return an Account Information Form, to include all contact details of the buyer of your goods and services, the contact details for the accounts department etc. A new account should be created to include all contact details. On so many occasions an account is opened which does not contain all of the basic contact information. From the credit controllers view point, this is so annoying as it means that before they can make contact with your debtor they have to scratch around looking for basic information. If you are a medium or large company with 500 accounts to credit control, it is easy to see the time that could be wasted looking for information.!

 

The minute you have supplied your product or service an invoice should be raised. The invoice should contain all of the relevant information:

 

·   Address the invoice correctly (to include a full post code)

·   Send the invoice to the correct person – this may not necessarily be the buyer

·   Include a reference to the buyer of the goods or service

·   Quote any reference or purchase order number you have been given

 

·   Include a detailed narrative on the invoice that actually means something to the buyer of the goods or service (Purchase of 1 x HP56213 doesn’t mean anything, whereas; Purchase of 1 x HP LaserJet Printer in accordance with our agreement with Joe Bloggs does!)

 

·   Send invoices as soon as possible - not only is this necessary to establish the correct date for VAT purposes, but it also starts the credit-period clock ticking.

 

We haven’t spoken much about actual credit control yet have we? The point is: good credit control is not just about having a proper credit control chase process in place, it is making sure that the chain before credit control gets involved is watertight and working correctly so that when it comes to “actual credit control” your credit controller can make contact with your debtor with full confidence knowing that everything prior to their involvement is correct. Psychologically, this immediately gives your credit controller the upper hand.

 

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Jamieo"Making Your Cash Flow"

Ltd Co Debtors in Liquidation - Don't Write them off Just yet!

As per Graydon UK, company liquidations rose by 12% between April and June 2008 and there was little change to this rate in the following months.  With this figure being so high, the chances are that most businesses will be affected by at least one of their debtors going bust in the current economic climate.  If your lucky, the liquidation may result in the creditor receiving a few pennies in the pound This can be very hard to take, especially if the debtor has made countless promises of payment prior to the liquidation.   

However, help is at hand in the form of the little known Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. This states that if the director knew, or ought to have known, that the company was continuing to trade whilst insolvent the court may (following an application by the liquidator) order them to make a personal contribution to the creditors.  Of course, some firms go bust and it is through no fault of the directors. if, however you feel that they were making promises they knew they couldn't keep then you should take action in an attempt to recover your money and to stop the dishonest director from doing it again.

In the case of Northern Rock, the lawyers and accountants found 'insufficient grounds to proceed with any legal action for negligence' against the directors who had been in charge at the time of the collapse.  However Northern Rock have already paid back 57% of the £26bn owed which is more than can be said for most company's going through liquidation.

If you are concerned about the financial stability of one of your clients due to repeated failed payment promises, get the promise in writing (email is sufficient) and from a director.  If they won't provide it, that's a huge red flag and it may be worth speaking to a debt recovery agent sooner rather than later. 

Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow" (Article courtesy of Eleanor Bateman of Bateman's) 

Changes to VAT Rates

I am sure that you are all aware that the rate of VAT has been reduced to 15% with effect from Monday 1st December 2008.
 
This is just a quick reminder for you all to update your VAT rates in your accounting software! Failure to do this, will result in:

• Customers having a valid excuse for not paying you on time
• Extra work raising credit notes etc

I am certain that all of you have this in hand, but, it doesn't hurt to be reminded just in case!

Jamieo "Making Your Cash Flow"

Credit Crunch: How to Make Money from our Accountant!

Crest Partnership (A partner company) have recently developed a specialism by using depleted asset values caused by the Credit Crunch to generate significant tax deductions that can reduce a company's corporation tax bill.

These schemes include:-

• Sizeable claims for home working
• Asset sales
• Use of FRS accounting standards to claim tax deductions
• Increasing tax losses by changing year end dates 

They are willing to guarantee that their fees for this advice will be covered more than three times by the tax savings you will enjoy in one year alone. It will also resolve any potential section 419 exposure for excessive dividend distribution which is greater than your company's profitability.  Every one of these tax mitigation schemes have been reviewed by a panel of experts that consists of former HMRC inspectors.

If you are interested in talking with Crest about this, please e-mail me and I will put you in contact with them

Jamieo"Making Your Cash Flow"