Tips to get your year off on the right track

You have seen many articles and other items on New Year’s resolutions, weight loss and how to have a great year. They typically come right at the beginning of the year and after several of these, you probably get the point. So, as we close out this first month of 2012, we thought this was a great opportunity to give you a few tips on how to get your accounts receivables back on track and lay the ground work for a profitable year.

Invoice on time and at regular intervals: Always set time aside to invoice. If you don’t have time, hire someone to do it. Send out invoices at the time of service or set a time each month or week to do it.

Follow up in a timely manner: When invoices go unpaid after a 30-day period, send a statement to that customer and place a gentle follow up call. Ask how their service was and bridge into the unpaid invoice.

Decide when to step up collection efforts: While you need to gauge this yourself, we recommend entering into some type of collection procedure after 60 days. A letter stating that the overdue account will be sent to your debt collection agency if not taken care of immediately sometimes solves the problem.

Turn your accounts over: After 60 days, it may be clear that the customer does not want to pay or is having issues. Have a third-party collection agency such as APR take over your collection efforts. It will save you staff time and in many cases, get you paid much quicker.

We look forward to helping you in 2012 and we wish you a profitable year ahead. Check out the video on our basic tips;