The difference between getting paid promptly versus 10 or 20 days late may not be liquidity problems or intentional holdups. Instead, it's often bottlenecks and fumbles within the customer's payment processing system.

A successful strategy requires not only a good overview but the diligence to deliver on its promise. After all without action a good strategy is just a very nice group of words on the paper. We have talked with some of our most successful collectors and some of our most successful customers to find the common themes and actions that deliver the key elements of a successful accounts payable strategy.

Below are the key elements they agreed upon to improve your collections results:  

Meet with the decision-makers

Come prepared and meet face-to-face with managers and other decision makers. Make it goal to resolve any policy issues, documentation problems, etc. that may be slowing down payments in person so everybody can ensure that they are on the same page. This way information is also less likely to be misinterpreted.

Meet with the staff that are actually processing the invoices

Meet with all personnel processing your invoices, from the mailroom through to the accounts payable manager.  Observe how they handle your invoices, try and get to get to know them personally, and get their contact information. It's all about building personal relationships and understanding where potential barriers lie.

Stay on top of the situation with regular updates  

Run regular updates, are regular as you may need, even weekly if necessary, and send them to the customer with inquiries as to when the invoices will be paid.

Engage in immediate follow-up

The best accounts receivables people call their contacts the moment they detect any slowing to determine the problem and what the customer needs from them to solve it.

Always get to the 'real cause' of the problem

Sometimes the easiest response is to solve the immediate problem rather than looking for the root cause. In the case of an unpaid invoice  it is often not only the  immediate problem of an unpaid invoice taken care of, but by understanding the underlying cause you can solve the problem for good so it won't occur in the future.

Given that in many cases your customers won't necessarily be based just around the corner from you travel may pose a challenge. We also suspect that many in this environment won't have a budget for such activity. Certainly, it's got to be cost-justified and have a strong business case supporting any such expenditure.

But even if you have no budget for travel, it's still possible to institute such a thorough and effective strategy. Just create a checklist of what the payment process would look like call the customer and start asking the questions. A phone call asking discovery questions can still get you the results that a face-to-face would do.

Ultimately your goal is to take the emotion out of the equation and gain a better understanding of why your customers are paying their bills late. If you have the opportunity to gain a better understanding of their reasons you are more than half way to solving your problems.