To ensure the financial health of a business, there are different aspects to be aware of. One of them refers to customer default, which if it is at too high a level can significantly harm the company's finances.
Therefore, it is essential to avoid that customers stop paying what they owe, which can happen even because the company does not have a good organization. So, to prevent this from happening, continue reading this article.
And check out the following 6 tips to improve your accounts receivable management. This way, you can make sure that bad debts do not affect the success of your business.
1. Record all receivables
To manage your company's receivables, a simple, but very efficient tip is to register all the amounts receivable. This way, you can closely control the customers' payments and, thus, always identify those that have not been made.
Besides always registering them, which can be done right after the installment sale is made, it is worth including the main information about them. Among them, the date on which the payment should take place and its respective value.
With this, the register of receipts is kept complete and up to date, which helps to manage them, including identifying when the customer pays his debt. As well as if he does not pay and it is necessary to trigger the collection protocols.
2. Group your accounts receivable by day and type
Another simple tip to improve the management of your accounts receivable that can make all the difference is to group the customer's receipts by day and type. In other words, how the payment is going to take place, whether by payment slip, credit card, in person, etc.
This is another way to ensure the organization of accounts receivable, and this care is essential to prevent possible errors. After all, without the proper organization, a client may fail to pay, for example, because he did not receive the collection slip.
It may even happen that he has paid, but due to disorganization, his payment is not registered. All these situations have the potential to immeasurably damage the relationship with customers, as well as the financial health of the business.
By grouping the accounts by due date, the person responsible for this task has the facility to verify more quickly which accounts are paid and which ones the customers have not paid. What's more, the delinquent accounts must be regrouped into another group in order to start a new collection protocol.
3. Have protocols in place to prevent default
The management of accounts receivable also requires that you have protocols to prevent customer default. After all, as already mentioned, when they fail to pay the bills they owe the company, the financial loss can be so great that it becomes difficult to keep the doors open.
Therefore, it is important that before making a sale on credit, a credit analysis of the consumer is performed. For this, companies such as Serasa can be consulted in order to identify customers who are bad payers.
Thus, for consumers who are part of this group, it is recommended to only sell with payment methods in which the guarantee is higher, such as cash and even debit or credit cards. In the case of the credit card, if the client does not pay, who is without receiving is the card operator.
4. Create methods to collect debtor clients
Even when there is care to prevent default, it is possible that customers fail to pay their bills. In this sense, it is necessary to have methods to collect them, and this is another tip to improve the management of your accounts receivable.
Among them, it is interesting that the business always keeps the information in the client registry updated. Including contact information, so that when a call is made or a message is sent, there is no risk of finding out that the client has changed phone numbers.
It is also important that the professionals responsible for collection are polite and seek alternatives so that the debt is paid.
If a client claims to have financial problems, for example, it is appropriate to offer facilities, such as a longer term, installment plans, or even a discount. Therefore, it is worth negotiating so that the company does not fail to receive the amount owed.
5. Encourage early payment of bills
Another tip to avoid default is to encourage early payment of bills. To this end, the company can offer rewards to customers who settle their debts with the business before the due date.
It can be a discount, a gift, or another mechanism that is worthwhile for the consumer to make the early payment. The choice depends on the market niche to which the company belongs, and it must be attractive so that it really becomes interesting for the debtor.
6. Make use of adequate tools
Making use of adequate and technological tools is the last tip to improve the management of your accounts receivable. Even in companies that have a high volume of sales, after all, in this case, it can be difficult to do the work efficiently in a manual way.
In this sense, there are different tools that can be very useful. Among them is the collection system, which in addition to issuing the bank slip, forwards it to the customer's e-mail address and sends reminders until the due date. And afterwards too, in case the debt is not paid.
This type of resource can identify the status of the boletos, so it is possible to know which clients have not paid. In addition, there is management and customer relationship software, such as CRM.
With it, the registry is kept up to date, in which you can inform whether the client is a good payer or not. These tools make the company's routine much more efficient. And they can count on other resources to contribute to the tasks of the other team members!
