Commercial Collections: setting B2B culture If you’re in the business-to-business field, or even if you’re a consumer products business that works through third party distribution channels, you probably know what it is to check your mail eagerly every day, reviewing all the bills for the payment which should have been in months. There was supposed to be. If you were a good businessman, honest business deal with other good, honest, “trade collections” are not supposed to be part of their vocabulary. Back in the old days, an invoice or purchase order that had an established company listed in the draft law “to” field was almost as good as a cashier’s check. Today, if you’re in the business of serving businesses you may find that your cash flow is less reliable than a small time bookie. Commercial Collections: A Personal Story last April that eventually the $ 2,000 a client owed me by work done in December, after spending almost as much money as the value of my time reminding them to pay. No, this was not one of these handshake deals, we had a 5 page contract specifying net-30 payment terms. But that was a guy with a lemonade stand.

It was the media division of one of the largest retailers in the United States. The worst part was, I trusted this customer based on my experience working with them a few years earlier. I actually spent the money on Christmas gifts, waiting for the payment to come before my credit card. Avoid outstanding bills of course, you can cut the root problem by cultivating strong relationships with customers who pay on time. But customers are scarce, and, as I found, the well can go very wrong very fast.

Worse, it seems that the more business, less likely to pay on time. “Net 10 days” might as well be a foreign language in the Fortune 500 list of the land. The long board data given to B2B companies and self-employed is that the money is in large corporations. But good luck to get them before your rent is due. What should have been looking back on my experience with non-compliant corporate client, my biggest mistake was to do everything myself, with writing letters and making phone calls. With an hourly rate of about $ 75, I ended up spending the equivalent time of a great part of my fee of $ 2000. I should have gone to a collection agency. I did not know then that collection agencies were to assume the debts of small businesses and run the whole process for you for as little as $ 20 debt. Of course, I knew I was not a collection agency does not necessarily mean “putting an account in collections.” Many collection agencies are in fact remodeling themselves as “accounts receivable management” specialists, but even I can manage your billing from end to end, if desired. The client may not even realize that the person on the phone is an outside agency and not their own personal assistant. When I think of all the value of time spent collecting that makes $ 2,000, I could reproach myself for not handing him over to a collection agency. But I can always wait to put this knowledge into practice next time I have a client that is slow in paying. Steve Austin is a regular contributor to not allow the debt remain outstanding web site with articles about the election and recommended a collection of the best agencies.