Debt Collection for businesses from New Plymouth to Palmerston North

Effective debt collection is a major challenge for many New Zealand businesses. New Zealand has a very high percentage of small (less than 20 staff) businesses. For these businesses it is not cost effective to employ someone solely to focus on credit control and debt collection. But if your business is selling on credit then somebody has to be focussed on these issues. So, engaging the services of a debt collection agency makes sense.

When we talk about debt collection, we are referring to debt which is deemed to be 'bad' debt. Typically, this is debt that is over 90 days past due, sometimes 60 days. Debt which is between 30 and 90 days past due is usually referred to as being under 'credit control'. Sometimes businesses outsource both credit control and bad debt. Many businesses will deal with credit control in-house but outsource debt collection. We recommend engaging a debt collection agency to collect all accounts which are past 90 days due. A simple seven day letter to the debtor is a good final in-house step before referring the debt on.

The older a debt becomes, the more difficult it is to collect. People move, change their phone numbers and also forget about their responsibilities. Unfortunatley, some people do not have a strong sense of obligation for paying for services and goods, particularly if they are being chased for payment several months after the fact. Click here for the 3 key elements of effective debt recovery.