An open letter from Ian Carrotte of ICSM to all those in business and to all industries at home and abroad during these difficult times
There is no deny the last few weeks have been a turbulent time in politics. A period that has seen business suffer from the goings on in Westminster where we have had four Chancellor’s in four months, three Prime Ministers in three months and economic policy that changes on a near weekly basis.
The upshot appears to be finally some stability but with business and industry picking up the bill in the Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt administration. Higher taxes, double digit inflation, the Cost Of Living Crisis, interest rates hiked, the fuel crisis and the fall-out from Covid and the Brexit Business Deal - but thankfully not a run on the pound.
Rishi Sunak has already telegraphed ahead that there’s difficult times to come with a challenging winter of price increases, distribution difficulties and more taxation - so it’s only going to get tougher. That’s why you need to toughen up your business practice to cut out unnecessary expenses and drop loss-making clients. Tighter fiscal control in a business means paying your bills on time but also being paid on time. Don’t take risks with potential bad debt customers and stick to your credit terms as there will be customers who use the ‘we’re too big to fail’ line – just as Debenhams, Carillion and the like did. Keep a healthy reserve capital which will give you peace of mind, be a saviour if you do get caught with an unexpected cost or bad debt and prevent those sleepless nights.
Don’t write off debts
If customers begin to pay late then ICSM’s FREE legal letters are available for members to use online to chase up late payers and chase down long overdue invoices which have around an 80% success rate. (See how easy it is with this video: https://youtu.be/AIycysoFhYo.)
We also have a micro debt service which nets those smaller unpaid invoices which you may have given up on. Even if an invoice for, say for instance of £95, has not been paid for months or even years this service has settled many overdue accounts - indeed ICSM has brought in thousands of pounds of lost invoices for our members.
We have an excellent record in debt collection with a diplomatic but effective service led by Paul Carrotte who has successfully brought in tens of thousands of pounds for members last year - if you have a problem debt contact Paul on 0844 854 1850.
Struck off notices help to identify problems early
And a new service we have introduced this year is an early warning if one of your customers receives a Companies House “Notification of intent to strike them off the records.” Don’t forget a business can be struck off even if it is still trading due to not filing accounts and failing to reply to warnings, and will simply not exist officially. It’s seen as an early sign of trouble ahead and you will be the last to know. If this is of interest – email Ian.carrotte@icsmcredit.com or call him on 0844 854 1850 to see if this could be a benefit and save you money when customers go bust.
Keep on keeping on
Yes, it’s going to be a difficult couple of years, but we have been here before and come out the other side and find that business continues just as it did after the crises of 1974, 1989 and 2008.
Kind regards
Ian Carrotte
Proprietor of ICSM Credit
PS: Please note as part of our systems maintenance and upgrade to the new API, we will be carrying out a ‘Spring clean’ on old archived saved reports. All old reports saved prior to December 2019 will be deleted as they are obviously out of date. If anyone has a specific requirement to keep their ‘Old Reports’ in an archive, please let us know so that we can discuss.
For details about ICSM Credit call 0844 854 1850 or visit the website www.icsmcredit.com or email Ian at Ian.carrotte@icsmcredit.com