Over 60% of Third Party Letters Result In Payment.

By James Salmon 30/03/2017.

On average it takes over 70 days for an invoice to be paid to a small business. With the average overdue invoice being over £6,000, late payment can be a massive obstacle for British small businesses.

However small businesses achieve dramatically better results when they use a professional to chase payment of overdue invoices, according to a new report from a financial services research team at OS.

According to research conducted across 30,000 small businesses, Over 60% of third party letters achieved payment within seven days.  However when the debt wasn’t referred to a professional, almost 70% of the invoices were still unpaid a month later.  The findings suggest that the sending of a professional letter from a third party such as The Credit Protection Association typically results in money being paid around 21 days sooner than taking no action.

The Credit Protection Association realise that most small businesses do not want to resort to taking legal action against their customers as it can damage the relationship and is also costly and laborious. However it is so much easier and cost effective for our members to arrange for letters from the Credit Protection Association to go to their late paying customers.

In contrast The Credit Protection Association resolves over 80% of all overdue accounts referred by its thousands of members, of which the majority are Paid In Full (PIF)!

“Without exception, a well worded letter from a professional and reputable third party such as CPA has a significant impact in encouraging payment. The Credit Protection Associations letters instruct payment to be made direct to the member. .  While our initial letter and second letters are polite, maintaining your goodwill with the customer, they underline the seriousness of the matter. Our final demand informs your customer that if the overdue account is not settled, legal action will be taken, prompting immediate payment.

CPA members simply have to raise the letter request within the members only area of our website with a few clicks, and the letter will be sent by post and email within one working day, all covered within the subscription fee.

The Credit Protection Association knows that the late payment of invoices by their customers can be tremendously stressful for small businesses. Our system can enable them to identify the ability of customers to pay, thus shaping their credit facility and our system can also be used to encourage payment if and when it becomes overdue.

Where many creditors like to use their suppliers as an unofficial source of finance, using all sorts of excuses and tactics to delay payment as long as possible, advertising membership of The Credit Protection Association on your credit applications and invoices can make it clear that you will not be party to that game and that while they may play that game with their other suppliers, you expect your customers to pay on time.

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