Credit and collection insights.
Practical guides from our collections team on getting paid, extending credit safely, and protecting your business when an account goes bad. Written for commercial creditors, with templates and scripts you can use today.
Does a Collection Agency Need a License in Every State?
No, and the real question is which states do. How licensing works for commercial agencies, what a license and a $500,000 surety bond actually require, and the public checks to run before you place an account.
Read the guideCan You Collect a Past Due Invoice Without a Signed Contract?
What makes a business debt collectable, which documents prove the agreement when nobody signed one, where the $500 writing rule actually bites, and what to pull together before you place the account.
Collection Email Templates: What to Send at 15, 30, 60 and 90 Days Past Due
Four collection emails that each escalate something real, with wording you can adapt, plus the reason most accounts receivable sequences quietly stop working after the second message.
What a Final Demand Letter Should Say Before You Place the Account
A final demand letter is a deadline with a consequence attached, not a firmer reminder. What belongs in it, the four things that quietly destroy it, and when to skip the letter entirely.
Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): What It Tells You and How to Bring It Down
How to calculate DSO honestly, what the gap against your own terms is really reporting, the four causes behind a rising number, and the point at which an account stops being an average you can manage.
Accounts Receivable Outsourcing: When It Makes Sense and What to Keep In House
Where an outsourced receivables program earns its keep, the three failure modes that sink one, what should never leave your building, and how first party follow up differs from placing an account.
The 5 Cs of Credit: How B2B Credit Managers Actually Use Them
Character, capacity, capital, collateral and conditions, translated out of bank lending and into a trade account: which two Cs carry the weight, how to turn them into a limit, and what the framework leaves out.
How Does a Commercial Collection Agency Work?
What happens to a past due business account after you place it, from formal demand and skip tracing to negotiation, remittance and the point where an attorney belongs.
Commercial Collection Letters: Templates, Samples, and Examples
The full letter sequence, what every letter must contain, and copy-and-paste templates for each stage, from a friendly reminder through three versions of a final demand.
How to Make Collection Calls That Get You Paid
How to prepare, reach the right person, and run the conversation, with a word-for-word initial call script and two voicemail scripts you can adapt.
How to Extend Business Credit Without Getting Burned
The three questions to ask before approving an account, how to build a credit application that holds up later, reading a commercial credit report, and what changes internationally.
Business Payment Terms: Setting Net 30, 60, and When to Change Them
Whether Net 30 is really your best default, how to adjust terms as an account proves itself, and how to spot terms that are quietly starving your cash flow.
When a Customer Files Bankruptcy: What to Do and What You Can Recover
The steps to take the moment you hear, why the automatic stay means you must stop, what happens to the money you are owed, and whether you can get your product back.
Reclamation Letters: How to Demand Your Goods Back
What a reclamation letter is, the very short deadline that decides whether it works, and exactly what to include, with a demand skeleton to take to counsel.
Skip Tracing: How to Find a Customer Who Has Gone Quiet
When a missing account is worth chasing, where to look first using records you already have, and the point at which a professional will find people you cannot.
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