A great service to offer is credit control – i.e. chasing invoices. You might shudder at the thought of calling strangers to chase money, but it’s actually completely painless if you know what to say. Many small business owners prefer to outsource this task because it prevents awkwardness by creating a professional buffer between them and their clients.
About the Quick Win series
I decided to create this Quick Win series because I realised many Virtual Assistants are sitting around waiting for their clients to give them tasks instead of making work for themselves.
In order to be a successful, irreplaceable VA you need to be seen as an invaluable resource by your clients.
And your value is nothing to do with your rates.
In the eyes of your clients, your value is not only to help their business run smoothly but also to find ways to actively improve it.
Saving or making your clients time and money will obviously result in more income, but it also means your clients will pay you anything just as long as you don’t leave them!
There are many ways you can add value to a client’s business and the purpose of the Quick Win series is to provide suggestions for just a few of them.
Okay, now let’s move on to lassoing in some outstanding invoices!
How to chase invoices for your clients
Firstly, you’re probably worried that you’re going to call up and get an earful of abuse from the company you’re calling.
But this does not happen.
Companies do business with each other every day, invoices go overdue all the time and in my experience, people are really nice and completely happy to help.
So don’t be scared that someone is going to be mean to you because they won’t.
Before you call
Before you pick up the phone make sure you know the details of the invoice, who you’re going to speak to and what you’re going to say.
You don’t want to sound like an amateur and you’ll get totally fobbed off if they smell fear or weakness – so make sure you know what you’re talking about!
Invoice chasing telephone script
“Good morning, I’m calling on behalf of (name of your client), can you put me through to your accounts department, please.”
You get put through.
“Hi there, my name is (your name) and I’m calling on behalf of (name of your client). I’m chasing invoice number (number of unpaid invoice) which was due on (date it was due) and I wondered if you could give me an update on the payment status please?”
They usually say yes, check their database system and tell you.
OR/AND (combine to make a script you feel comfortable with)
“Hi there, my name is (your name) and I’m calling on behalf of (name of your client). You have an invoice due for payment in a couple of days and I just want to make sure you received it?
You’re usually very quick with payments so I want to make sure it hasn’t slipped through the net. Shall I give you the invoice number so you can check the status?”
Next move scenarios
If they say it’s been paid – ask for the payment reference, the date it was paid, a direct name and phone number then say you’ll look into it and call them back. Then let your client know.
If they say it’ll be paid on the next payment run – ask for the date of the payment run and let your client know.
If they say there’s nobody available to take the call – ask to leave a message. Tell them what company you’re calling from, give the invoice details (number and amount due) and ask for a good time to call back or just say you’ll call back again later/in the morning etc.
Make it clear you will be calling back.
If they say they’ll look into it – thank them, get their name and direct number and ask when you should call back to get an update.
They might want to keep fobbing you off but once they know you intend to keep calling, it’s easier for them to just sort it out and get you off their back.
If they plead ignorance – If you’ve given them the details of the invoice and they say they don’t have a record of it, tell them you’ll send it over to them right away.
Get the direct contact details of the person you’re speaking to and who to send it to if not them. Make sure the invoice is resent with a read receipt and then update your records.
If they seem embarrassed and a bit confused – make light of it. Diffuse their embarrassment by telling them that these things happen, warmly tell them that you’ll resend the invoice and make sure you get their personal email address so you or your client can resend the invoice directly to them.
Try and make one person accountable for sorting it out.
Invoices do sometimes get lost or not put on the right person’s desk so stay chatty and friendly. Tell them you’ll get a new invoice over asap, ask when it’s likely to be paid and tell them you’ll call back nearer the time to check it’s been added to the payment run.
Then ask your client to resend an invoice that same day and make a note to follow it up.
Good things to say
“When’s the best time to call back?”
“When is it likely to be paid – do you have fixed payment run dates?”
“Can I get your direct number please?”
“So you’re happy to look into this for me?”
“So I can leave this one with you then?”
“I’ll resend the invoice again today for you, what’s the best email address to use?”
“Thank you for your help in all this, I’ll give you another call on Monday to check the status”
Important
You should come across as confident, polite and professional. You don’t want anyone to feel embarrassed or annoyed but they do owe your client money and you need to let them know you will be pursuing this until the invoice is paid.
Although you need to sound professional, it’s ok to laugh with the person and make light of it all. The person you’re speaking to is unlikely to be the person responsible for paying the invoice, so don’t make them feel bad about it.
Just be clear, and confident and make it known that you’ll be calling back repeatedly until it’s sorted.
If it starts to get a bit out of hand (they’re having issues or going out of business or someone gets arsey) then just escalate it to your client and let them deal with it if they want to take it further.
Recording the info for your client
Your client may already have a system for this, but if they don’t then create a Google Doc or Excel spreadsheet in Dropbox with these headings:
- Name of the company that owes them money
- Phone number
- Contact name
- Invoice number
- Amount due
- The date payment was due
- Notes
Get the client to add all their invoices to the doc then mark in red the ones that have gone out of their payment terms (over 30 days etc), mark in orange the ones that are still within 30 days but you need to keep an eye on, and mark in green invoices that have been raised but are not due yet. Or whatever the client decides.
The doc can be as complicated as you want but basically, you need to know who owes the money, how to get hold of them, the invoice number, how much is owed and when it was due to be paid.
Because you may only complete this task once a month, use the notes section to mark the date you called, who you spoke to and what they said. This is so you can get up to speed quickly when you make your follow-up calls.
If your client wants to take this further, you will find six free overdue invoice templates on my Downloads and Training page.
Remember
The first couple of calls you make will probably feel weird and a bit scary, but once you get a patter going you’ll be fine and you’ll wonder why you were ever worried in the first place.
You’ll also have a new service to offer your other clients!
* If you’re going to do any type of credit control in the UK you may need to register under money laundering regulations (AML). This HMRC web page lets you check whether your Virtual Assistant business needs to register or not.
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Many thanks for this guide! I’ve just been asked to do this task by a client of mine and your article has been really useful!
Thank you for this post Jo. I’m just taking my first baby steps into the VA world and I’m learning so much my head is spinning. I’m trying to figure out if I would be a good VA and especially if I would be a good business owner. At the same time trying to list my services and specialties, if I should go ahead and do it. I’ll add this one, I have good “phone skills”, it sounds rather easy but I wouldn’t have thought of it myself!
My first client has just asked me to do this and at first I was like ‘yeh i’ll do it!’ followed by dread and a sick feeling…but reading this has made it sound painless. So thank you Joanne x
Hi Jo, bit confused as I do this in my corporate job. If we’re just chasing payment but that’s the limit of what we’re doing, do we really need to register with HMRC? I took a quick look and it’s a bit confusing
Hi Sue, it’s because it is a little confusing I’m afraid! There have been a few discussions about this in my Facebook groups because HMRC often give conflicting information. The best thing to do would be to contact them (they have a live chat service) with the perimeter of the task just to make sure. They do have some info on registering for Anti Money Laundering here as well.
I hadn’t thought of offering this. Thanks.
Thanks Jo! Great tips on how to approach it all. I am currently doing this for one of my clients but didn’t think to add this to my services page. Definitely going to update my site! Thanks again.
Nice work Cori and thanks for leaving a message, much appreciated. x
Great post Jo! Such simple steps but something so many people get a bit flustered having to do – will definitely be referring back to this one!
Wow thanks Joanne. I shall be adding these great guidelines to my expanding repertoire!
Thanks Jo, that’s a great help. 1. it is good to know I’ve been saying the right thing and 2. that there are also even better ways of asking for overdue payments.
Fantastic news! It sounds like a daunting task if you’ve never done it, but it’s actually completely painless.
Hi Jo – I love this post, I have done a lot of calls chasing payments and everything you mention is right. It is such a simple thing to do, when you have the basics! The majority of the time it is an oversight or there is a genuine reason.
As always Jo, you never cease to amaze me. Thank you so much for sharing.