After ensuring your company really knows your customer, knowing when you can expect your invoices to be paid is the next step in an effective credit control process.

Agreeing payment terms in advance helps to ensure both parties accept and understand their obligations and allows for the creditor to forecast the arrival of funds, a key survival strategy in today’s turbulent economy.

In part two of the BIS and ICM Managing Cashflow guides below you will find some excellent advice on this very subject.  Including a simple set of questions to help your organisation identify any weak links in your procedures.

From the simple and often overlooked point of ensuring the due date appears on your invoices, to guidance on securing written acceptance of your payment terms.

You can download the guide below:

Our MD Sid Home expands on the guidance provided in this free guide below:

“When accepting an order from any customer, you need to make sure that your payment terms are always in force.  It is entirely possible that customers may try and introduce their own terms into any transaction, this is usually achieved using purchase terms.

If a customer issues purchase terms where payment differs from your offered terms, it is imperative that you confirm your payment terms are in force, by supplying the customer with your own terms again.

At its most basic level, your terms should be the final link in the paper trail between you and your customer.”

For more information on credit control and credit management, including the other guides in this series please click here.

The Managing Cashflow series of guides is produced by the Institute of Credit Management in association with the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.  The full series of guides can be found here.