They say cash is king.
Any business that’s been around for long enough will know this is true. Maintaining good cash flow is essential.
To get cash in the business in the first place though it needs to be profitable.
One way that businesses can increase their sales and therefore their profits is to extend credit to their customers. This might mean delaying the payment on certain goods or services or breaking a purchase into instalments.
Interest added to credit ultimately increases the cost for customers but it is still an attractive option as they don’t have to pay everything up front.
The downside for the business is the increased amount of admin needed to ensure that payment is made. There is also no guarantee that payments happen on time.
Any delay in payment is bad for the cash flow of the business so finding ways of not only reducing how long credit control takes but also reducing the risk of payments being delayed or not made at all is vital.
Credit control is just one part of the accounting process.
We’re obviously huge fans of Sage software to take care of your accounts. They provide an excellent range of programs that cover most accounting tasks.
There are however ways of making it work even better for your business. Like the perfect spices to add to a dish, there are complementary pieces of software that add something special to Sage.
In this article we’ll be looking at Draycir’s excellent program, Credit Hound, which tackles those credit control issues.
How much time do you spend transferring notes, writing chasing letters and running reports? The admin time associated with chasing payments and ensuring credit is under control is an unnecessary expense.
Not to mention the costs of letters being sent and the actual financial loss to the business of not being paid. Wouldn’t it be great if these things were taken care of and the overall bad debt acquired by poor credit control was written off?
Credit Hound does exactly this. It’s a full control room for ensuring you get paid and the business cash flow is healthy.
Here’s some of the things Credit Hound helps with and the features it includes.
Obviously, the reason we love Credit Hound is because it integrates seamlessly with Sage.
If you currently use Sage for your accounting then this will be ideal.
(If you don’t, what are you doing?! Only joking. But if you want to learn more about what it can do for your business you know who to talk to.)
Because it integrates with the rest of your accounts, it will update in real time and ensure that once outstanding payments are completed, the numbers match up.
Remember those tedious, time consuming admin tasks we mentioned like transferring notes, running reports, writing letters and internal comms to notify staff of updates?
Well, all this is automated with Credit Hound. One of the most helpful aspects of the process that is automated is those strongly worded letters…
Hound-ing customers to pay the money that is due is one of the more thankless aspects of the credit control process.
Credit Hound will send out email reminders for nearly due and overdue payments and will increase the tone depending on how far out the payment is. No need to worry about drafting and redrafting it yourself.
The software will cover that and send it of its own accord so the customer knows what’s up. You can of course adjust this and other automations to suit your organisation.
The Credit Hound dashboard is super simple to use and has all the information you need right in front of you, giving you the option to inspect certain things in closer detail.
It shows you:
Another great feature of this software is that customers can make secure payments using their chosen payment provider, when prompted by the Credit Hound system.
The important thing is making it as easy and frictionless as possible for them to get the cash to you.
Offering credit to your customers can be a great move for your business but it does come with risks so it’s essential that you have a proper system in place for controlling where your money is and getting it paid ASAP.
Credit Hound is that solution and saves you time and effort too. Integrating with Sage makes it a must have addition to your accounting arsenal.
Want to learn more about how you can implement it in your business? Check out more info here and get in touch.