Making A Decision On The Selection Of A Collection Agency

The management of delinquent accounts for any company is a big job, and particularly in an economy such as ours today, there are that many more people who are having difficulty in handling their accounts.The question is, where do you start in the process of selecting such an agency. You will want an agency that will represent your company in a professional and effective manner, yet will also do a good job of collecting a reasonable amount from the past due accounts. The public image of your company must be kept intact, but the greatest effort to collect as much of the back debts as possible must be put forward.

One source of reference that you can use in your selection is the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals. The ACA was founded in 1939 and has 5,000 international members. The membership is made up of third party collection agencies, attorneys, creditors, asset buyers and affiliates of vendors. The association provides guidelines of ethical practices and communicates the value of the credit and collection industry to businesses and consumers alike.

Another source of information in the selection of a collection agency is to as knowledgeable people such as bankers, attorneys, and accountants who they might recommend as a collection agency. Bankruptcy attorneys usually have an insight in this category and might have better connections in that particular industry.

The statistics on collection agencies overall are good from the standpoint of collecting the money. If you do nothing, the debts will remain and if you attempt to collect the money yourself, it will detract from your normal operations of business. If you hire it done by a competent firm that has a good track record, you will probably not get back all of the money owed to you, but you will get back a good amount of it.

Statistics show that a good bill collector can get back from 70 to 80 percent of the money owed to the creditor, and that includes the fees that the collection agency charges. So, you can get back the bulk of the money owed to you, and not have to interrupt your normal business operations. That is a deal that is hard to beat.

When you find a company that you can work with, you have formed a relationship that is made in heaven, as you can count on the firm to recover most of what is owed, and you can turn the whole operation over and be done with it.