Financial Statement Analysis For Credit Professionals
Determining the credit limit for customers is a difficult task. One factor is to analyze the customer's financial statements to understand their profitability, financial strength, and liquidity. We...
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Understanding Collection Litigation
We strongly prefer to collect money owed to our clients without going to court. In most situations, if the debtor is willing to voluntarily cooperate at any level, we can get our client's money faster...
View ArticleBigger Is Not Always Better — Largest Collection Agency Pays Largest Penalty...
NCO Group, reputedly the largest collection agency in the world, has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $3.2 million according to an announcement today from the Federal Trade Commission. The...
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Does knowing the truth about a debtor matter?
Your collection agency reports that they too have not yet been able to collect on an unpaid invoice from your business customer. Do you care why? Some of your common choices at this point are: Offer a...
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How to Separate Fact From Fiction
Unfortunately, we know that many debtors will provide false or misleading information in order to make it harder to collect. A well-designed and executed strategy is necessary to get to the truth...
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What to do when you expose a liar?
In my last article, I talked about methods for determining if your non-paying customer is giving you a truthful explanation of their situation. Unfortunately, all too often we catch someone...
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Credit Analyst Shares Debt Collection Tip
A discussion on LinkedIn regarding my recent article "Does Knowing the Truth Matter" prompted this comment from Kim Gelinskey, Credit and Collections Analyst for Veolia ES Technical Solutions, L.L.C....
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Most Business Owners Are Not Personally Liable for a Company’s Debts
If a business is organized as a corporation, limited liability company (LLC), or other type of separate legal entity, the owner is not liable for the debts of the business unless other conditions...
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Simple Personal Guaranty Repeatedly Saves Client
At our commercial collection agency we always prefer having a personal guaranty. Years ago, a new client started sending us claims along with their very simple, one page credit application. At the...
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Piercing The Corporate Veil To Create Personal Liability on Business Debts
This article has been updated since originally published in CreditToday with new input from attorneys and other credit professionals. We received numerous comments via CreditToday, InsideARM and...
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Why We Can't Collect From A Defunct Company
The chances of collecting on an invoice due from a company that has ceased operating are very slim. If the business was organized as a corporation or LLC (limited liability company) then only the...
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What Can You Do When A Customer Hides Behind An Attorney?
At our commercial collection agency, we aren't afraid to talk to attorneys. When we call a debtor and they tell us to talk to their attorney, our biggest fear is that the attorney will not actually...
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Small Payment to Determine Integrity
It is frustrating, or worse, when a business customer does not pay their first open invoice on time. Perhaps something just happened at the customer's business after the credit decision was made that...
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Trucking Company Turns Collections Into Profit Center
At our collection agency, we have a client who uses a provision in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) to collect significantly more than the original balance due on accounts sent to...
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Mental Preparation For A Commercial Collection Call
Elite athletes mentally visualize technique and success to improve actual performance. Our debt collectors use a very simple technique to get better results. Studies have shown that visualization...
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This Credit Application Language Can Help With Delinquent Accounts
Getting permission to run personal credit reports on B2B Credit Applications can lead to payments during difficult times At our commercial collection agency, we often encounter business owners who...
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What To Do When You Hear “That Employee Did Not Have The Authority To Sign...
We hear it all the time: “We are not going to pay those invoices because the person who signed the contract didn’t have authority.” Many go on to say: “It says right in our By-laws that only an officer...
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Free Fraud Detection Resources
One of the simplest ways to detect potential fraud is to confirm certain information provided on a credit application using easy, free resources on the Internet. As a commercial collection agency, we...
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How to Make Receivables Harder to Collect
We don’t know anyone who actually wants to make it harder to collect invoices, but here are some common issues that result in this scenario. Repeatedly Invoice Incorrectly Develop a reputation with...
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Using A Collection Agency To Preserve Customer Relationships
A Credit Manager’s Creative Way of Saving Customers Want to see a salesperson squirm with displeasure: just tell them the account for a long-term customer is being sent to a collection agency. The...
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