Debt Recovery -
Owed Money

No debt is a good debt and from time to time all businesses will be owed certain amounts of money. The way in which debts are handled can often be the ‘make or break’ for businesses, especially in hard economic times. Essentially there is no right or wrong way to approach outstanding debts. However, some approaches are more efficient and effective than others. The processes that a business chooses to implement as to debt recovery can vary widely from business to business and industry to industry.

No matter what business you are in we can assist in a variety of ways to minimise bad debts and improve cash flow. This assistance can start from only becoming involved once you have exhausted all other internal means of recovery the debt. At that stage we can issue letters of demand and if you subsequently deem necessary and appropriate, we can commencing and pursue recovery proceedings in the relevant court. Alternatively, we can become involved at an earlier stage to decrease the likelihood of having to commence legal proceedings or writing the debt off by advising and assisting as to how to approach a matter as soon as you identify that there may be some issues with the client/debtor. We can even assist you with legal advice and practical solutions to help you avoid bad debts in the first place, for example by assisting with advice and implementation regarding things such improving client selection processes and credit control measures.

Often by having us review and assess your internal processes, starting with client engagement and credit control procedures, through to account management, and then finally with debt control and collection, we can help reduce bad debts and the need to resort to legal proceedings and improve cash flow.

Of course no matter how well you are set up, how accurately and consistently you comply with your well structured and thought out procedures for client engagement, credit applications/control, billing and debt management there will always be circumstances where clients’ don’t pay. We can assist you in sending a letter of demand on your behalf, often for a very affordable fixed fee. If the debt is paid as a result of us sending the letter of demand then this is a fantastic and incredibly cost effective result. If not then the business needs to determine how much further time, effort and expense they are willing to incur to attempt to recover the debt. It is difficult to apply a one size fits all approach to commencing legal proceedings for unpaid debts because the assessment should be based on the circumstances of each individual debt/situation. If you apply a blanket rule you will often find yourself pursuing debts that should be written off and writing off debts that should be pursued.

The jurisdictional basis of the contract with the client, amount of the debt and the complexity of the legal issues involved will all help determine whether you pursue a matter and if so the appropriate court to commence proceedings in. We are able to assist in a variety of legal forums including but not limited to claims in the civil courts, issuing statutory demands or pursuing applications for adjudication under the Building and Construction Industry Security for Payment Act

For standard unpaid invoice claims of up to $100,000.00 we are often able to implement a fee structure that fixes the cost of all stages of the work we are to perform other than the preparation for and attendance on the final hearing of the matter, which we can estimate for you quite accurately. For unpaid invoice debts in excess of $100,000.00 or more complicated debts of any size we can provide an accurate estimate of the costs for all stages of the work. This way you will know the costs of pursuing a debt from the outset enabling you to fairly readily determine whether you wish to pursue a matter or not.

By reviewing your current approach to client engagement, account management and internal debt control and recovery processes and using our fixed fee structure (when necessary) to pursue legal proceedings against recalcitrant debtors you can create real and valuable reductions to your administration time, effort and costs with drastically improved credit control and debt recovery results and the related improvement in cash flow.

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