Guide To Using Our Debt Recovery Letters

Our suite of debt recovery letters is designed to enhance your credit control procedure. It does this by providing you with the template letters that you need in order to chase late payments promptly and thus avoid the escalation of late payments and, in turn, bad debts.

The late payment letters are made up of the following three templates:

• Invoice Overdue Letter
• Late Payment Reminder Letter
• Final Demand for Payment Letter

We recommend implementing a three-stage process. This ensures that the process is effective but will not cause issues with good customers that have a habit of paying a little late.

The letters strike a balance between being friendly and firm. As each stage progresses to the next, the letters become more formal.

Your Legal Rights

All businesses in the UK benefit from the provisions of the Late Payment Of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013. For a detailed explanation of your rights under this legislation see our guide.

The Regulations grant three key rights:

1. The right to claim interest at up to 8.5% from the date at which point the invoice became payable.

2. The right to claim a small amount of compensation for the time spent making the claim. These amounts are very low. On claims for up to £999.99 you can claim £40 in compensation. Claims above that and up to £9999.99 get £70. Claims of over £10,000 get £100 in compensation.

3. The right to claim for ‘reasonable’ costs. These cover costs such as those of a debt recovery company but not legal fees such as solicitors costs.

Our letters take account of these legal rights. In the third letter, the Final Demand, your right to add these costs to the amount of the overdue debt is noted.

Completing our Letter Templates

Each of the letter templates has been created in Microsoft Word format.

Once downloaded, the templates can be easily edited by you to customise them to your specific requirements.

Each letter template includes drafting notes within the letter template.

All text that is contained within square brackets (like you can see here: [e.g.]), needs to be edited by you and then the square brackets deleted. This is the text that will vary depending on your own specific situation and requirements. You just need to delete the words that do not apply or add in the information that is being asked for, e.g. your invoice details.

Completing each letter is that simple.

Whether you send the letters as a digital letter attached to an email or by post, you should copy the template onto your headed notepaper.