Tips & tricks
The day-to-day management of a credit insurance policy requires discipline, focus, and consistent action. Here we give you some tips & tricks that can help you do this as well as possible.
Tips for paying in advance with certainty:
- Your supplier can draft a Letter of Credit
- You can cover the risk with prepayment insurance. For detailed information, read this article on minimizing prepayment risks.
Before accepting an order:
- Know your customer!
- Do diligent research
- Be mindful of fraud (Read more about how to protect yourself from financial loss due to fraud here)
With debtors, be alert to:
- Proposed payment arrangement debtor or deferral of payment (including past due)
- Report a dispute in time
- If debtor asks for change to payment conditions
- If goods are in danger of not being collected
- (Impending) insolvency or seizure
Common 'excuses' from defaulters:
- Our accountant is sick
- Our accountant is on vacation
- We have not received your invoice
- Can you fax the waybill/packing slip?
- I can't find the receipt of the goods in our system
- The payment is on its way
- Have you sent the goods/invoice to the correct address?
- Payments are in batches, and this one is not due until next week
How do you prevent fraud?
- Have a new customer pay in advance
- Listen to others
- Be alert to suspicious behavior
- Secure your accounts
- Check, check, double-check
For comprehensive information on recognizing and preventing fraud, read this article with tips on recognizing and preventing fraud.
What should you especially not do when delivering orders?
- Deliver in case of doubt about the debtor
- Deliver without retention of title (Germany)
- Wait (too) long with reminders and demands. (Read more about what to do if payment is not forthcoming here.)
Pay attention to Claims & Debt Collection:
- The sooner you notice, the better
- Follow your normal debtor management process
- Separate the 'not-able from the 'not-willing
- Attribute payments to the first due invoice
- Want to make a payment arrangement? Always consult us
- On receipt of a collection, it is not checked whether the claim is covered. A provisional assessment of the claim is made based on the same documents as are required for the assessment of the claim.
- Uninsured claims can also be assigned to a 'third party' debt collector.
- Do not make a deal with a debtor yourself after you have handed over the debt collection.
End-of-year tips:
- Check credit limits and accounts receivable
- Avoid excessive advance payments
- Request timely postponement of debt collection
- Clean up your balance sheet for better ratios
- Report only the necessary, insured turnover
- Check whether your policy is still in line with your current business operations.
- Take action in good time in the event of a holiday closure.
Please read our article with end-of-year tips for your credit insurance for a detailed explanation of these tips.
