New Year’s Resolution: Clean Up Your Company’s Accounts Receivable

2022 is here!  Resolutions are a great way to visualize goals for the coming year – if you own or run a business, you have dealt with accounts receivable and unpaid debts owed by customers or clients.  If the collections for your business aren’t closely managed, they can get out of control and your business can suffer.  One common misconception is that once a debt has been outstanding for 90 days, six months, or even a couple years, you have missed your chance to collect it.  If you think this, you are not alone. When we first meet with business owners to discuss their outstanding debts, they often come to us with their most recent unpaid invoices. That’s a great place to start, but we almost always discover that there are actually some older, equally important, debts that the business decided not to pursue when they became difficult to collect.

We Know You Are Sick and Tired of Chasing Down Payments 

It’s not that those older debts were bad cases or that they didn’t have a significant impact on the health of the business. When we speak with business owners who have chosen not to pursue old debts, the most common reason we hear is that it just takes too much time and too many resources to track down debtors and keep following up with them to get payments. As a business owner, you have your business to run. You can’t be spending so much of your time trying to get paid for work you did years ago. So, business owners decide to stop pursuing those old debts because it’s too time consuming and costly. 

Debts Don’t Have to Be a Regular Cost of Doing Business

While it does make sense to focus on bringing in new business and doing your work well, rather than dwelling on old debts, accounts receivable are an essential part of the health of any business. Giving up on old debts too many times can seriously damage your business’ bottom line. The truth of the matter is this: yes, it’s difficult to pursue unpaid invoices on your own, especially while you are trying to focus on growing your small business. But, you don’t have to do it alone. 

What if you could outsource chasing down unpaid invoices as soon as the payment is considered “late”? What if you never again had to get on the phone to negotiate a payment plan or follow up when a former customer misses a payment for the fourth month in a row? How much time would that save you? How much money?

Hiring a collection attorney allows you to do just that. You can turn over unpaid accounts -- new and old -- and get accounts receivable completely off of your plate. At Wakefield Law, we do so much more than file lawsuits. In fact, we locate and contact debtors first, before taking any legal action. We work with your former customers in a respectful manner to negotiate payment of your outstanding invoice. If necessary, we use the legal system. Most importantly, we stick with your debts until they are 100% paid off or it is clear that they are uncollectible. That means we do all the heavy lifting when it comes to communicating with debtors, ensuring they make payments on time, and following the payment plan through until your debt is paid off.  

The best part? We don’t charge hourly for collection work! That means, even if the debtor is difficult to locate, unresponsive, and difficult to work with, you don’t pay more. At Wakefield Law, we do our collection work on a contingency basis. This means that we get paid a percentage of any and all funds we collect from your former customers. We love working on a contingency basis, rather than the old-fashioned hourly rate! We work tirelessly for you to collect the outstanding money owed to you. 

Even Older Debts Can be Pursued 

What about those old debts that you wrote off years ago? They can be resurrected, as long as they are not over three years old (if there is no signed contract) or over five years old (if your former customer signed a contract). If you took a judgment in the matter against your former customer, the debt is valid for 10 years, and can be renewed beyond that! There may still be hope! Let an experienced collection attorney work on collecting that old debt. What do you have to lose? You won’t be charged hourly, so you only pay a percentage of what we collect. Something is better than nothing, right?

Work with an Experienced Collection Firm to Improve Your Business’ Financial Health

At Wakefield Law, we have been collecting outstanding debts for businesses throughout Northern Virginia for over thirty years. Our experienced attorneys are diligent, thorough, and committed to our clients’ business health. We want you to be successful! To help improve your business’ financial health and to learn if your old debts can be collected, give Wakefield Law a call at 703-771-9740 or email us at law@wakefieldpllc.com.