Role
Collections
How quickly do you find out that an invoice has not been paid? If it is at the monthly receivables review, the most effective moment - the first week after the due date, when a reminder is enough - has already passed.
Intro call
Four questions we would start with
Collections work better the earlier they start - and damage the relationship less. The questions below are there to establish how many days you lose at the start.
How quickly do you find out about a delay?
A first reminder sent on the third day after the due date reads as a courtesy. The same one sent on the fortieth reads as an accusation. The wording can be identical, only the moment differs.
Who decides on escalation?
If there is no recorded rule, the decision depends on who happens to be asking and how hard. And with no rule the loudest client gets the most leniency, whatever they are worth.
What do you not know about a client until you call?
Usually: that they have an open complaint, are waiting for a credit note or never received the invoice. A chasing call to a client who is in the right costs more than the money.
What do you drop first when time runs short?
Usually the small amounts - and they are the ones that then sit for years, because every time they lose to the bigger ones.
We take over the chasing, you keep the conversation
Detecting delays, preparing the context before contact and running the soft path can be taken off the desk. The conversation with the client, the decision to escalate and reading the situation stay with a person.
- Before contact the whole case is visible. - Whether there is an open complaint, whether the invoice arrived, whether the client has a history of delays. A reminder sent in ignorance costs the relationship.
- A rule instead of discretion. - When a reminder, when a call, when an escalation - written down once and applied the same way to a large and a small client.
- Escalation always goes through a person. - Moving to the formal track has commercial and legal consequences. The automation reminds; a person decides, together with the account owner.
Scope
What can be taken off collections
Twenty-three example tasks. Each one has a human approval point. Below is a selection, and the scope we fit to your process.
Detecting delays
- A daily list of overdue receivables with ageing
- A signal about a client starting to pay later than usual
- Detecting disputed and held invoices (judgement of merit: the specialist)
- Pointing out clients exceeding their credit limit
- Receivables summarised by account owner
Preparing the contact
- The picture of the case before the call: payment history, open complaints, credit notes
- Checking whether the invoice was delivered and to whom
- The history of earlier contacts about this receivable
- Pointing out the person on the client's side accountable for payments
- Material for the account owner before their conversation
The soft path
- A reminder before the due date (wording and sending: the specialist)
- A chaser matched to how late it is, keeping the tone (approved by: the specialist)
- A register of promises to pay with the date and a reminder
- A proposed repayment schedule (decision: the specialist)
- Calculating statutory interest for late payment in commercial transactions (decision to pursue: the specialist)
- Pointing out receivables that qualify for compensation for recovery costs
- A signal about receivables qualifying for bad debt relief (assessment: accounting)
- Confirming payment and closing the case
Escalation and learning from history
- Pointing out cases meeting the conditions for escalation (decision: the specialist and the account owner)
- The full set of documents to hand over to the formal track
- A register of the steps taken in a case, with dates
- How effective each step was
- Lessons about clients where the soft path never works
A day's work
Today
- You assemble the list of overdue receivables once a month
- Before a call you check in three systems whether the client is in the right
- You send chasers in batches, when you find a day for it
- You note a promise to pay in a notebook and chase it from memory
- You put the small amounts off and they come back a year later as a write-off
- You decide on escalation in a discussion that takes a week
With AI assistance
- You see a delay on the day it arises
- You have the context of the case before the call, including open complaints
- The reminders go out to the rule, and you work on the conversations
- A promise to pay has a date and reminds itself
- The small amounts are handled by the soft path, without your time
- The conditions for escalation are recorded, so the decision is fast and the same for everyone
- Reacting to a delay
the first contact comes from a daily review rather than a periodic one
the due date is checked without a person
- Keeping the relationship
fewer chasers sent to a client who is in the right
the context of the case is checked before contact
- Predictable receipts
it is known what to expect in the coming period
promises to pay are recorded and watched
- A record of the pursuit
a case handed to the formal track is complete
every step is recorded with a date rather than reconstructed
We start with the soft path, not with escalation.
- Step 1
We write the rule down
When a reminder, when a call, when an escalation - split by the size of the receivable and the type of client. An hour's conversation that ends discretion.
- Step 2
Daily detection and context
The overdue list plus the picture of the case before contact. The change you see fastest in the receipts.
- Step 3
Reminders to the rule
The wording and the sending stay with a person; the automation watches the moment, it does not write for you.
- Step 4
Escalation and lessons
The conditions for moving to the formal track and summaries of effectiveness. Last, because they need the history from the earlier steps.
Common questions
Questions that come up at the first meeting
Will a collections specialist stop being needed if the chasers go out themselves?
A chaser was never the hard part of this work. The hard part is the conversation with a client who is not paying because they have a problem - and it decides whether you recover the money and whether you keep the client. When sending reminders and watching dates stop taking a day, there is time for that conversation, and for the cases that today reach collections too late.
Does this fall under the AI Act?
Collecting receivables from companies is not a high-risk use. With clients who are individuals, separate rules on debt recovery and on personal data apply - in particular we do not build an automatic assessment of a person's creditworthiness.
Still have a question that is not here? Book a call
Next step
How many days pass between a due date and your first reminder?
We will show you what work on receivables looks like when a delay is visible on the day it arises and the conversation starts from context.