Get Paid What You Deserve
13/03/14 – Get Paid What You Deserve
We have all been buoyed by the good news stories in the press detailing the apparent uplift in the economy. With employment falling and house prices rising, there are strong indicators that the UK may finally be coming out of its recent slump.
With the economy improving it remains vital that your business is not hampered by bad debts and has strong credit control procedures in place to ensure you are paid in full and on time. As is often drummed into all of us, cash flow is king!
Despite its importance, credit control needn’t be as difficult as you may think. To help, I have outlined just a few useful tips and procedures below:
- Conduct background checks on any new customers and find out as much as possible about them and their business from public records. This information is readily available so be sure to do your homework
- Review your standard terms and conditions to make sure that they contain all the protections, enforcements and payment clauses that they should. Then ensure these standard terms and conditions are legally incorporated into every contract you enter
- Be sure to consider factoring, invoice discounting and trade credit insurance
- Plan ahead and anticipate both quiet times within your business and potential times of disruption
- Make it as easy as possible for people to make payments. The more forms of payment you can accept the better – consider balance transfers, cheques, card payments, phone payments, online payments, etc
- Don’t fall for common excuses for non-payment. Whatever the reason, non-payment is non-payment!
- Regularly review your invoicing and recovery procedures
- Get payment on account wherever possible, especially for money you will have to outlay yourself
- Invoice at regular intervals wherever possible, don’t always wait until the conclusion to request payment
- If payment of an invoice is outstanding, cease any works until payments are up to date
- Keep the customers informed of costs regularly and before they are incurred. Not only will this keep your client happy but it will also lessen the chance of any fee or payment disputes
- Be consistent with your credit control procedures and if you threaten action – follow it through
Getting debts paid can be a daunting, timely and costly exercise but a letter from a specialist solicitor can often prove very effective. At Gill Akaster we can provide this initial step for as little as £20 (plus VAT). We are able to offer a full and comprehensive debt recovery service and will request payment of not only the principle debt but also any relevant interest and statutory charges.
Our letters have already had a high impact; with the majority of debtors contacted through our debt recovery service (Debt RIP) paying in full within just 14 days.
If you would like to discuss any of the points above or to find out further information about our low cost, fixed fee debt recovery service for businesses please contact our specialist debt recovery solicitor, James Peterson, on 01752 203520 or by emailing; james.peterson@gasolicitors.com.
All content on this website (inclusive of guides, blogs and imagery) is strictly copyrighted by Gill Akaster LLP, trading as GA Solicitors. It is not to be used by any third party without prior contact and permission. Any requests for content should be sent to katy.mckenna@GAsolicitors.com.