Past Due Accounts: The Sooner The Better

Past due accounts often get overlooked by a business before the holidays. It’s easy to forget things around the office this time of year. Things pile up or get set aside. Clients mention being “just too busy” to deal with their past-due accounts during the period surrounding the holidays. Now, however, is perhaps the most important time of all to make sure your past-due accounts are getting placed with a collection agency. In our experience, debts are most collectible within the first 90 days of delinquency. After the first 90 days, the value of those accounts is worth just 87% of their original value. The value decreases even more (to just 33%) after 120 days.

Ghosts of Accounts Past Due

Imagine that is December when the most recent batch of past due accounts is sitting on your desk. Normally, you would pick up the phone, send a letter or two, and then send it to a collection agency. Now, however, that the holiday season is in full swing, you’ve got a few days off here and there. The year-end workload starts accumulating, and let’s be honest productivity isn’t what it should be, because you’re spending more and more of your workday thinking about gift lists, parties, and travel.
Mid-November has come and gone, You had meant to call on that past-due account but got caught up in the holiday hoopla instead. It happens. But if you’re not submitting your bad debt accounts by this time, chances are you won’t get your accounts submitted within the ideal 90-day delinquency period. At this point, the one or two calls you’re able to make aren’t going to produce much. After all, you don’t have all day to make collection calls, and your past-due customers have busy holiday schedules too.
All the more reason to get past-due accounts to us now. If we start collecting on your delinquent inventory right away, we can make payment arrangements before tax season arrives. Our representatives can negotiate payments for now or just after the holidays when people start receiving their tax refunds. Best of all, it is one less item you have to think about this holiday season.

Nice List

It’s already hard enough to collect past-due accounts. Why make it harder by waiting? Make it easier on yourself and your office. Get the debts to a collection agency early. Check that box off your To-Do list. Clear the pile on your desk or the stack of accounts hiding in your desk drawer. Get your boss’s email titled “What’s going on with our accounts receivables?” out of your inbox. Do this, and we will be able to collect more for you, and you will be able to concentrate on what’s important this holiday season.