Adfin is the ‘Just Get Paid’ company for a reason. What should be simple for small businesses - getting paid for the goods/services they deliver - is still not straightforward.
The numbers back this up - research from FreeAgent showed that almost two-thirds of invoices sent by UK small firms were paid late in the past year, and Sage estimated that £112 billion of UK cash flow is currently locked up in late payments.
This means having a strong credit control process that gets you paid on time is critical, and could be the difference between smooth cashflow and missing monthly payroll.
We’ve broken down the key steps to building a great credit control process below.
1. A single source of truth for your receivables
Having a single view of all receivables in one place is an absolute must-have. You need to be able to assess what’s due, what’s late and what needs chasing.
At Adfin, we’ve built a credit control dashboard that shows all your invoices and payments, synced in real time with your accounting software. We’ve made it fully flexible, so you can group by credit control status or action required, sort and filter by any field, and choose exactly what data you want to see, so you can act upon them.
2. Good quality customer data
Once you know which invoices you need to chase, the next step is making sure you’ve got the right people to follow up with. Bounced email addresses, outdated phone numbers or missing contact information can all delay collections.
Adfin surfaces this information for you automatically. If an email bounces or a phone number is incorrect, you’ll see it straight away in the Adfin Console. That means you can act quickly to update the right information and keep the collections process moving along.
3. Quick and consistent follow ups
Following up promptly when invoices are due is one of the simplest ways to improve your payment times. Most late payments aren’t intentional - people forget, emails get missed, and priorities change, so giving them a gentle reminder should be your first port of call.
Defining a process you can stick to makes this easier; a reminder on the due date, another a few days after, then a clear escalation if needed. Keeping the tone friendly and confident helps maintain good customer relationships while still getting results.
The challenge here can be carving time out of a busy work day for this - copying and pasting invoice information into emails isn’t a good use of time for anyone.
We found this ourselves at Adfin, and built Autopilot to fix this. Autopilot sends reminders for you, in your own tone of voice and from your own email domain. It automatically fills out the relevant customer information like amount owed and due date, and you can check and review emails before they are sent. In short, Autopilot saves you time from the mundane bits, but still gives you control to keep your customer interactions authentic.
4. Learn what works for your customers (and something is better than nothing!)
We’ve all been there - you’ve chased a customer countless times, only for them to come back to you and ask to pay another way, or delay a payment because they need more time.
This is where having the right mix of payment options comes in. With Adfin, you can choose between direct debit for recurring payments, instalment plans to help customers spread large invoices over time, and Apple / Google Pay to make it easy to pay in one tap from a phone.
We’ve just launched partial payments, which let customers pay what they can upfront while you collect the remaining balance later. You can set a minimum amount, so you stay in control while still giving customers flexibility when they need it.
You can also customise your chasing workflows by customer with Adfin. The customer that always pays on time - no reminders needed. The one that always needs chasing - an automated Whatsapp reminder every 3 days with the payment link embedded.
So with Adfin you’ve got a personalised process for each of your customers, with no additional legwork for you.
5. Track results over time
Lastly, a good credit control process is not just about today’s overdue invoices - it’s about spotting patterns. Are certain customers always late? Are your outstanding receivables trending in the right direction?
In Adfin, you can see this at a glance. Your dashboard shows unpaid vs received amounts for this month and last month, so you can instantly check how you’re doing and whether your credit control process is working.
Get started
To learn more about Adfin can help your business with credit control, take a look at our credit control tools, or book a demo with the team.
