Hesitant to turn accounts over for collection?

It can be hard and costly to get new customers, clients or patients. Everything that you read says that it is always cheaper to keep existing customers, clients or patients than getting new ones.

While this is true, do you really want to keep those that are not paying you? It is easy to be optomistic about collecting the money that you are owed, sure some will pay and it's a fine line between handling your accounts receivable in a sensitive way so that you keep your customers and avoid alienating them in the process.

Human nature being what it is, your customers that are past due will do one of three things, two of which are BAD. Ideally, you will get paid, that's the GOOD. However, if someone owes you money they may feel bad about it and will quit using your services to avoid dealing with their past due bill or worry that you will refuse to deal with them, that's BAD. Once they have left you, they then have no incentive at all to pay your bill in a timely manner, they are now buying from someone else. That's BAD.

The best way to deal with this is to have a firm credit policy in place, that is have a process in place to collect the money, set a time limit to place an account for collection and STICK TO IT.