Two customers owe us six figures between them and chasing it has become somebody's full-time job.
Business-to-business recovery, run as a process rather than a series of increasingly annoyed emails. We take the ledger, work it in order of recoverability, and keep the relationship intact where it is worth keeping. The reason an aged debtor list stops moving is rarely that the debts are bad. It is that chasing has become nobody’s defined job, and the person doing it is also the person who has to sell to the same customer next month. So the polite reminders continue, the balance ages, and the only debts that get real attention are the ones that have already become a dispute. Run properly it is a sequence with decision points: what is collectable, what is disputed, what is a credit-control failure, and what each of those is worth pursuing.
Dinmore Bell runs business-to-business debt recovery: assessing recoverability, owning pre-action strategy and correspondence through the letter-before-action stage, and negotiating settlement. It does not undertake consumer collections, which are regulated activity. Court enforcement and insolvency proceedings are conducted by instructed specialists.
How we own it
Triage the ledger
Which debts are collectable, which are disputed, which are a credit-control failure. The three need completely different handling. A collectable debt is one where the customer accepts the sum and has the means. It needs pressure and a payment structure, not argument. A disputed debt is a commercial claim wearing an invoice, and pressing it as though it were a simple non-payment usually hardens the dispute and weakens the position. A credit-control failure is where the paperwork does not support the claim at all: no purchase order, no signed terms, a delivery record that does not match, a credit note nobody applied. Triage also prices the effort. Recoverability is a function of the counterparty’s means as much as the merits, and there is little sense in spending on a claim against a company with no assets and a filed set of accounts that says so. Checking that first is cheap and changes the decision. The output is an ordered list: what is pursued now, what is parked, what is written off, and what needs the underlying contract fixed so it does not recur.
Pre-action ownership
Letters before action that comply, payment plans that are documented, and personal guarantees enforced where they exist. The correspondence moving to a third party changes the temperature without anybody raising their voice, and it takes the conversation off the desk of the person who also has to keep selling to that customer. A letter before action does a specific job: it sets out the claim, the sum, the basis and the consequence, and it starts a clock. It also has to comply, because a claim later issued on the back of defective pre-action conduct can carry a costs penalty even when it succeeds. Interest and recovery costs on commercial debts are frequently available and almost as frequently not claimed. Where the answer is that the customer wants to pay but cannot pay now, a documented payment plan is usually worth more than a judgment. Documented means a written agreement with a schedule, an acknowledgment of the debt and a consequence for default, rather than an email saying they will do their best. Personal guarantees, retention of title clauses and parent company guarantees are checked at this stage rather than after enforcement has failed, because they change who is actually being pursued.
Escalation
Statutory demands, insolvency pressure and enforcement — instructed and controlled, with a decision point before every cost. Escalation is a commercial decision taken with a number attached. Before each step there is an assessment of what it costs, what it is likely to achieve and what the realistic recovery is, and the client decides. Statutory demands and winding-up pressure are effective against a solvent company that is choosing not to pay, and inappropriate where the debt is genuinely disputed, where using them can be an abuse of process with costs consequences. Knowing which of those two situations you are in is the purpose of the triage stage. Proceedings and enforcement are conducted by instructed specialists. Strategy, correspondence, negotiation and settlement stay with the person who has run the matter from the ledger onwards, so the person briefing the specialist knows the trading history and the commercial objective.
Why the debt happened
Most recovery problems are contract problems with a later date on them. Payment terms that were never agreed in writing. No interest clause, so late payment is free. No retention of title, so goods delivered and unpaid cannot be recovered. Nothing requiring a purchase order, so the customer can dispute the authority of whoever ordered. A recovery exercise produces the evidence for fixing that. The same three or four gaps tend to appear across the ledger, and closing them in the standard terms and the onboarding process changes next year’s ageing profile more than any amount of chasing does. Credit control is the other half. Limits set before the order rather than after the default, a check on the counterparty at onboarding, and an escalation trigger that fires on a date rather than on somebody noticing.
Keeping the customer where it is worth keeping
Not every debt is worth a relationship and not every relationship is worth a debt. The decision should be taken deliberately rather than by whoever sends the next email. Where the customer matters, there is a version of this that gets paid without ending the trading relationship: the account is separated from the recovery, the correspondence moves to somebody outside the commercial team, the settlement includes a forward arrangement, and the terms for future orders are tightened as part of the deal. Where the relationship is not worth keeping, saying so early is what allows the recovery to be run at full pressure from the start. The costly outcome is the middle: months of soft chasing that preserves neither the money nor the customer.
Where specialists come in
This is a business-to-business service only. Consumer collections are regulated activity and we do not undertake them. Court enforcement and insolvency proceedings are conducted by instructed specialists.
Related results
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Related insights
All insights →The letter before action, and what it actually buys you
Most disputes are settled by the quality of the first letter, not by the threat at the end of it.
Where nine per cent of your revenue goes
Contract value rarely leaks in a single expensive event. It leaks quietly, through renewal dates nobody owns.
- Do you handle consumer debt?
- No. This is business-to-business recovery only. Consumer collections are a regulated activity and fall outside what Dinmore Bell does.
- The customer says the work was defective. Is that still a debt?
- It is a disputed claim rather than a simple non-payment, and it is handled differently. Pressing insolvency procedures against a genuinely disputed debt can carry costs consequences, so the first step is to test the dispute against the contract and the record.
- Can we charge interest and costs on a late commercial invoice?
- In many business-to-business situations statutory interest and a fixed recovery sum are available, and a contractual interest clause can provide for more. They are frequently not claimed, which quietly makes late payment free for the customer.
- How long should we wait before escalating?
- Escalation should be triggered by a date agreed in advance rather than by frustration. A defined point at which the account moves out of the commercial team is what stops a balance ageing quietly for a year.
- Is a payment plan better than a judgment?
- Often, where the customer intends to pay and cannot pay now. It needs to be documented: a written schedule, an acknowledgment of the debt, and a consequence on default. An email promising best efforts is not a payment plan.
- What happens if the customer goes into liquidation?
- Recovery becomes a question of what security exists: retention of title over goods, a personal or parent company guarantee, or a set-off against amounts you owe them. Those are checked early for exactly this reason.
- Will chasing the debt cost us the customer?
- That is a decision to take deliberately at the start. Where the relationship is worth keeping, correspondence moves outside the commercial team and the settlement is structured to include future trading on tighter terms.
- Can you stop this happening again?
- Usually the same three or four gaps appear across a ledger: no written payment terms, no interest clause, no retention of title, no purchase order requirement. Closing them in the standard terms and at onboarding changes next year’s ageing profile.