Outsourcing for an easier life
Making the shift to outsourcing a central credit function like Collections can take a lot of work. It can be a Herculean task. Ironically, outsourcing promises to make your role as a CFO or Credit Controller easier. But connecting your systems to the suppliers can prove the first step up a steep hill towards a fully functioning outsourced Collections practice. The limitations of supplier systems can dictate the amount of information you can supply to third parties and it’s a wonder Collections agents can meet the targets you’ve set without more information to work with.
Going through the pain
The pain of outsourcing does not end with data integration between your company and the Collections supplier. There’s the whole issue of familiarity with products, processes, policies and customer service standards that need to be worked through methodically. We don’t claim to have all the answers to those challenges but we can shed light on how we helped a major international supplier get the best value from its outsourced Collections team.
Enabling visibility of invoice and account status
Corrivo is a cloud-based system – it can be configured to stay synchronised with your ERP system, with only a second or two’s delay. All the detail of invoices, down to the minutiae of line items, and associated documentation such as proof of delivery (POD) notes and ePODs or Purchase Orders can all be accessed from a central dashboard within a few clicks. Visibility of invoice status – unpaid, part paid, fully paid – and visibility of account status – on stop, off stop, on watch, in clearing or due diligence – can all be helpful to collections specialists. Even if their systems are focused on the application of policy and the processing of Dunnings letters and making reminders calls, you can still give them the visibility and insight they need to understand what’s really going on and help solve customer problems. This is what we did for a client who had chosen to outsource Collections to Eastern Europe. We gave their outsourced teams the visibility they needed.
Need to know access
By giving their Collections agents a login to Corrivo, they were able to work in their in house system and use Corrivo to gain a window on the account and invoice status. Each user could be set up to see only the accounts or the areas of the business that they needed to see for their specific role. Likewise, they could be given permissions to send copies of statements, invoices and other documents if it was helpful to their role, and sometimes Corrivo was more up to date than their systems. The benefits? Fewer unnecessary reminders letters were sent. This meant customers could be better serviced and as a result, the client got better value from their outsourced Collections Agents. The contract started to prove value-adding instead of being something that drained IT and Finance team resources and sent stress levels soaring.
Smooth and easy
We have a clever optional feature called single sign-on for clients, which allows Corrivo users to access Corrivo when logged into their company’s other systems, such as their SAP or Office 365 account. This gives the user the feeling that Corrivo is embedded in their systems. No more retyping passwords. Once you’re signed in to your main system, Corrivo authenticates you and gives you access so it’s a pain-free, frictionless process to access all the information agents or finance team users need to go a great job.
