It is a truism that cash is king. This is never more so than when facing trading difficulties and increasing pressure to pay ongoing liabilities. Being paid for your services or goods on time is critical but sometimes concerns over losing a customer relationship or throwing good money after bad can discourage clients from pursuing their legitimate debts.   

Our restructuring team have carried out numerous client credit control reviews of the years and witnessed the success stories and, sadly, the failures. 

It is also true that those who shout loudest tend to get paid first. This is even more critical when a customer is distressed and if you leave it too long you may miss the boat completely and end up as an ordinary creditor in an insolvency.  

Our experience means we can advise on the options open to you, and we work closely with Sheriff Officer firms who assist their clients day in and day out, collecting debts.   

‘Letter before Action’ demand letter 

A surprisingly cost-effective option. Personal service and on-site enquiries can elicit useful information and where payment is not forthcoming can help inform a collection strategy. 

Litigation Management 

A Sheriff Officer can also oversee the escalation of the debt recovery process via legal action avoiding management time being consumed. 

Tracing services 

A ‘no trace, no fee’ service can use sophisticated desktop tracing software to track down those tricky customers who appear to have disappeared off the face of the planet. 

This service can encompass address and employment tracing, field investigations, occupancy reports, land registry searches and vehicle HPI/DVLA searches. Again, this further information can help inform a future collection strategy determining the commercial merits of further action. 

Further information 

As your trusted adviser, we can happily recommend Sheriff Officers that we work with who we believe will be able to help.   

Getting advice early means you have more options for your clients, so please do get in touch with our restructuring team who can point you in the direction of our own trusted contacts. We want to help our clients prosper and you shouldn’t be shy in asking for help.