3 tips for more successful debt recovery

If you’ve been in business for a while, odds are you’ve had an overdue invoice or two. Sometimes it might just be a few days late, but in other scenarios, businesses are having to chase for months to recover money they are owed.

This has a pretty negative impact on the business, especially if it’s happening a lot and you aren’t successful with your recovery efforts. So today, we wanted to talk about how to be more successful in debt recovery. How do you go about contacting customers and asking for payment, and what do you do if they refuse, or just ignore you? We share all this and more in today’s newsletter.

1. Know Your Options

In order to successfully recover money owed to you in overdue invoices, you need to know what your options are for pursuing it. What is your standing legally, and what is going to be the most successful path to take? In this month’s blog, we explain the 3 options you have when chasing overdue invoices, and weigh the pros and cons of each one. So now, all you need to do is click here and find out what your options are, and decide which is the best for you. And don’t forget, if you still aren’t sure, you can always get in touch with us for some friendly advice!

2. Handle Disputes Properly

There aren’t many people in the world who actually enjoy conflict. But like it or not, business conflicts can have a pretty big knock-on effect on your cash flow – particularly where an invoice is overdue. Often, business disputes will result in one party withholding payment until are satisfied a resolution has been reached, even if they are technically the party in the wrong. This leads to long, drawn-out proceedings, all the while that invoice is getting more overdue. So, rather than wait until they cause an issue, learn how to spot the signs of an emerging dispute and deal with it quickly. To find out how read our blog here.

3. Get Your Invoicing Terms Right

Of course, the best option for improving your debt recovery is to reduce the number of debts you need to recover in the first place. A good way to start this is with your invoicing terms, and more broadly your terms and conditions. By ensuring your invoicing terms are ironclad, and you have a written agreement of terms for your customer to adhere, you are much more likely to see overdue invoice numbers drop. And if they don’t, you have put yourself in a strong position to per the debt in a legal setting. To find out more about writing invoicing terms that really work, read this useful article from Xero.