Home Based Business Philippines - Collecting Accounts Receivable - Four Principles of Collection Management

Or third party-party debt collector, business owner, creditor, you may be an accounts receivable professional.

You also want to do it legally. And you want to be able to do it as effectively and quickly as possible. If you're in business it is likely that you or someone within your business is engaged in the task of collecting money on past-due accounts, in fact. Lawyer or accountant, you may be a doctor.

These principles will help keep you out of legal trouble, also. They will dramatically increase your success, and I've learned that if you will follow what I call the four principles of collection management. I've worked with thousands of people who collect money to help them improve their collection techniques.

Here are the four principles of collection management:

We need to understand that it's our job to make sure it gets done. And moral obligation to pay within the terms of the agreement, legal, members) need to understand that they have a contractual, clients, our customers (patients. And there should be no doubt as to why we're collecting the money. Our primary responsibility is to collect the money as close to the terms of the agreement as possible. Collect the money. 1.

Systematic follow-up is about consistently showing up, and in the business of collecting money. Someone once said that 80% of success is just showing up. It's generally done inconsistently and without a very good system. If I could choose one element of the collection management process that I think needs the most improvement it would be systematic follow-up. Systematic follow-up. 2.

I would say listening skills, and if I could choose one skill that I think is more important than all the other skills in doing the business of collecting money well. They get the debtor to do most the talking. The best collectors I've ever seen don't do much talking. Once you get your debtor to discuss the account you're well on the way to collecting the money. Discussing the account. 3.

Any marketing professional will tell you that it costs a lot more money to find new customers than it does to keep the ones we already have. And not many of us are in a position to lose very many customers. It does not necessarily meant they won't be good customers in the future, just because you have customers that are having a problem today. Preserve goodwill. 4.

It will more important then ever to stay on top of delinquent accounts, in 2009. Debts are increasing at an alarming rate. The economy is slow, as we end 2008. I will expand on the four principles of collection management, in future articles.