Chaser Software...What you need to know

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Chaser Software...what you needto know

What is Chaser?

Chaser is a credit control application which provides the tools to effectively automate chasing customers to pay their invoices without losing the human touch. It gives clients the insights to better decide which customers to grant credit to and how best to chase up their customers to pay their invoices.

What is credit control software?

Credit control software is a class of software that exists with the goals of helping businesses save time and boost cash-flow in carrying out credit control. It provides tools to help businesses effectively automate chasing their customers to pay their invoices by email. It also provides businesses with insights to help them better decide which customers to grant credit to and how best to chase up customers to pay their invoices.

Credit control software is not invoicing software. Clients will integrate their credit control software with their accounting system or invoicing platform so that it has details of their customers and sales invoices. They will then setup different email templates that can be sent to their customers regarding outstanding sales invoices.

These templates will have place-holders for the pieces of information that will always be customer and invoice specific (e.g. invoice number, customer contact first name).

They will set a schedule of which template they want sent out at which point by reference to invoice due date. At each of those points, their credit control software will check with their accounting system or invoicing platform that the relevant invoice remains unpaid.

If so, it will populate the chosen template with the relevant customer and invoice specific information. It will then send the completed email to the relevant customer contact.

Credit control software requires time to setup and administer. If the client is a small owner managed business, then credit control will just be about doing enough to get their invoices paid. And making sure that there is sufficient cash in their bank at the end of the month to pay their bills. The increasing array of basic, clearly automated, reminder functionality available within cloud accounting systems will likely be sufficient for their needs.

Credit control software is for businesses who recognise the value of good credit control. They want to maximise the time efficiency of their finance teams by automating the email chasing part of their credit control process.

At the same time as preserving the human touch that makes that chasing effective so that they can achieve the best debtor day and cash collection performance. They recognise that when it comes to credit control, they are competing with other suppliers to that customer to get their invoices to the front of the queue.

They want the insights provided by credit control software to help them do that. A good rule of thumb is if the company has at least one person on their team for whom credit control is part of their job description, they should be looking to invest in credit control software to help them do that job most effectively.

How does the automation in credit control software operate?

Who uses credit control software?

Automation that works

The idea of automating the email chasing part of their credit control process is seductive. Polite persistence pays when it comes to chasing customers to pay their invoices. You may be thinking: “this is great. Clients can setup this automated functionality and get all the benefits of polite persistent chasing whilst saving the time they used to have to spend as a finance team chasing manually”. There is however a “but”. In order for that polite persistent chasing to be effective, it has to feel human. Effective credit control is rooted in the relationship between the business and their customer. Chasing emails that are clearly automated are a false economy.

They are clearly not personal emails from the business or their team.

They do not build upon that customer relationship and can easily be ignored. They are ineffective in getting invoices paid. They are polite persistence that doesn’t pay.

It is imperative that the credit control software gives you the ability to automate the chasing process in the way that you would do it were you doing it manually.

Key components of this automated humanity are:

That the templates and schedules the client set up are not one size fits all. They have the ability to tailor them according to the relevant characteristics of that customer (e.g. closeness of the relationship, payment habits)

They reflect their regular email address and email signature in being sent

Where that customer has more than one outstanding invoice, the automated emails can automatically group the chasing of those invoices together in one email in the way that the client would do manually

Clients can set the emails to be sent only on the days of the week and at the specific times that they would send them manually. This way they can avoid the clear hallmark of automation that comes from sending them outside of working hours. They can also avoid emails being sent about invoices that have already been paid but that they haven’t yet had a chance to reconcile accordingly.

What are credit control insights?

The credit control software acts as a communication hub for all of the client’s credit control records. It provides them with a record of all of the chasing emails sent in relation to different invoices. It also provides a log of all replies that flowed back and forth between them and their customer in response to those chasing emails. Finally, there is the ability to add notes of any other credit control interactions with the customer (e.g. chasing phone calls). The finance team, and any other team members who need it, will be able to access the complete credit control conversation with the customer within their credit control software. No more uncertainty as to what has taken place and no more having to root through inbox or sent items to piece the picture back together.

Alongside this historic insight, the credit control software will provide the client with information that makes their credit control smarter and more effective. It will present them with customer payment habits and trends so that they can know empirically who their good and bad paying customers are and they can tailor their chasing and grant of credit accordingly. The credit control software will suggest who the best person is to contact at their customer. It will also suggest the best time to contact them. All by way of giving the invoice the best chance of being paid on time.

MacIntyre Hudson have recently agreed an amazing partner deal with Chaser, speak to a member of the Digital Solutions team to find out more and help your clients help themselves.

Hayley joined MHA MacIntyre Hudson in January 2016, bringing with her over ten years of experience working with owner-managed businesses. Hayley is a member of our cloud accounting team and is able to advise clients on the best cloud options for their business.Hayley places upmost importance on offering her clients an excellent service, whilst providing guidance on how to help the business grow successfully, via outsourcing, share restructuring and strategic accounting.

Contact Author

Hayley Kingsnorth

Accounts and Business Services Director

E: hayley.kingsnorth@mhllp.co.ukT: +44 (0)3330 100 221

www.macintyrehudson.co.uk