Management of your Trade Debtors

1. Changes in order patterns.  Instead of regular orders, they become more spasmodic.
2. Unfamiliar faces.  Staff you've dealt with in the past leave suddenly.  New people appear.
3. Complaints increase.  A satisfied customer becomes less impressed for no apparent reason.
4. Payment patterns worsen.  Regular payers start to settle late.  Regular late payers begin to delay payment further.
5. Credit lines are exceeded.  A customer tries to take unauthorised credit or ask for credit lines to be extended.
6. Customers change banks.  You find you're paid with cheques drawn on a new bank.
7. Industry in decline.  The customer's sector is going through a hard time - and it, too, may be feeling the pain.
8. People are hard to contact.  Regular staff you've dealt with for years suddenly find reasons not to talk to you.
9. Calls are intercepted.  Unhelpful secretaries won't put you through, or claim the person you need to speak to is away.
10. Debt alert.  A customer hammered by bad debts could become the source of a chain reaction.