How does your accounting department handle cash collections? Do they print all of your open invoices or a report showing past-due accounts, and then call from that list? When a customer promises to pay by a certain date, how do you record that information - or communicate it to other people in your company?

An organised and efficient cash collections process will increase your cash balance and reduce your adebtor days - resulting in a positive impact to your bottom line. Activant Prophet 21's cash collections capabilities streamline your collections process, allowing you to keep track of conversations with customers, close calls when invoices are paid, and, most importantly, focus on those customers who owe the most money the longest.

Contact Your Customer

Prophet 21's cash collections screen, in the Sales Ledger (Accounts Receivable) module, includes all of your customer's pertinent information, including a contact name, phone number, extension, and e-mail address, making it easy for your collections team to communicate with the contact. The screen also includes all of the information vital to collecting a past-due account, including invoice numbers, proof of delivery, and due dates.

You can record all contacts with - or attempts to contact - the customer in the "Notes" field on the screen. Your collections team can record their efforts or customer responses, such as, "Customer said the check's in the mail." Equipped with a time, date, and user-name stamp, you'll know exactly who called the customer, when they called, and why they called. The notes capabilities also improve communications within your accounting department, and eliminate redundant calls.

You may choose to first contact a customer with a past-due invoice by e-mail. Rather than playing phone tag for the first notice - especially if it's a customer who typically pays on time - you can simply click on the customer's e-mail address, open an e-mail, and send a request for payment. Then, simply paste the e-mail into the notes field for future reference.

Plan Your Strategy

If a customer promises that you'll receive a check on Thursday, you can mark their record for follow-up. If you haven't received the money by Friday, that customer's name will automatically appear on a callback report, alerting you to follow up on the status of the check.

Since your collections representatives' time is limited, they can easily prioritise and generate a list of only the most delinquent customers, like those who are more than 40 days past due, or those who owe more than £1,000. Likewise, if you want to see which of your sales representatives have the most past-due accounts, you can print reports by this and other criteria.

Sometimes, customers won't pay a bill until certain issues have been resolved. For example, if one customer won't make payment on an invoice until they receive a replacement part, you can set a To Do reminder. This will send an alert to your sales department - who will make sure your customer receives his part as soon as possible.

Also, customers are often unable to remember specific items for which they owe money. Your accounting department can easily drill into specific invoices from the Cash Collections screen to remind a customer of the particulars of a delinquent account.

Collect Your Cash

When the customer finally pays his bill, close the call by attaching the overdue invoice, in one simple step, to the cash collections record. Any follow-up flags will be canceled, so your collections team doesn't have to worry about erroneously contacting a customer whose bill is paid.

Collecting past-due cash is a difficult task. Make it easier for your collections team - and improve your bottom line - with Prophet 21's cash collections functionality.

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