Important Reasons Why Commercial Collection Agencies Can Improve Cash Flow To Your Business
No matter what the size of your business is, positive cash flow is a crucial element, which means that collections should be one of your top priorities. At the same time, collections is a process that makes a lot of people uneasy, meaning that they sometimes procrastinate on doing it in favor of other, more pleasant duties. For many businesses, employing commercial collection agencies is the answer.
Commercial collection agencies handle the collections process quickly, effectively and professionally, freeing your employees up for business-growing tasks. Think about it-you would not ask your accountant to handle your company’s advertising, would you? So why should you require her or your salespeople to handle collections?
Recognizing the time and effort required to get a new client makes the process of hiring commercial collection agencies a no-brainer. First you have to identify prospects, then pitch to them, then close the deal, then perform the actual work. At the end of this process you still have to get paid. If some of your existing clients have open receivables that have gone past 90 days, it’s a lot more efficient to get a professional to obtain that money for you as soon as possible while you’re working on finding new clients and getting more business from existing clients who pay on time.
Commercial collection agencies have more clout with clients than in-house debt collectors as well. Chances are if your client isn’t paying on time, he or she has major cash flow problems and is playing triage with bills. The vendor who shows a serious commitment to debt collection by hiring commercial collection agencies is the vendor that will get paid first when there’s not enough money to go around.
Commercial collection agencies also successfully recover the bulk of their receivables in three weeks or less. We all know in business that time is money, and getting that money quickly helps both your cash flow and your credit score. In addition, the longer a debt is outstanding the more likely it is to remain unpaid, so early recovery is extremely important in debt collection.
Commercial collection agencies in most cases are not paid until they collect; at that point they receive a percentage of the recovery. In this way, they can actually be cheaper than using in-house collections, because an employee doing collections is taking time away from other work that he or she could be doing.
When using an agency, there’s no cost up front, and no cost at all if they are unsuccessful. Some commercial debt collectors boasting success rates of as high as 98%, even after paying their fee your return rate is likely to be much better than it would be if you did it on your own.
Skip traces can also give you an idea of any judgments outstanding against the debtor, which can help you decide how far to pursue the collections process. If your commercial collection agency provides this service as part of their fee, it’s a significant reason to choose them.
