Save Time & Money processing your own debt recoveries with AlphaLAW-claimIT
AlphaLAW-claimIT is the most comprehensive, flexible and user friendly debt recovery software system available today.
For over a quarter of a century MSS Ltd have specialised in the design, development and support of legal management systems and are one of the UK's largest suppliers to this specialised market. These applications include accounting, case management, conveyancing, legal aid control, time recording - in fact all the requirements of the modern day legal office. Over the years MSS has won many awards including Best Legal IT Product and Quality of Service Award as Best Legal IT Supplier.
One of the MSS products that is attracting considerable interest in the commercial world is AlphaLAW-claimIT, a debt recovery system. Many companies are finding that the charges applied by external agencies - legal firms and debt recovery companies - are frequently extremely high, the costs quite often deterring them from progressing the recovery of a debt further than the threatening letter.
The process of debt recovery through the courts is, in the most part, a purely procedural event: sending notice of intent to issue proceedings, issuing the claim, requesting judgment, enforcement and monitoring payments. At each stage forms may be have to be completed together with the production of letters to court, client and debtor. Only when a debt is defended are the skills and knowledge of the legal profession usually required.
Statistically, only a very low percentage of bad debts ever reach the stage of issuing proceedings. Users of claimIT have reported that, due to the formalised nature of the documentation produced, 70% or more of debts have been recovered during the initial stages without resorting to court proceedings. The formalised documents produced by claimIT impress on the debtor that the recovery process has started and it is at this stage that a majority of debtors decide to settle.
A considerable number of major commercial companies now use AlphaLAW-claimIT to handle their own debt recovery, many regularly saving thousands of pounds in fees. Due, of course, to its origination many legal firms use AlphaLAW-claimIT, using it as the basic tool of their debt recovery department. It is in this environment that the integrated charge calculation and billing system is a vital component. However, commercial companies can use this feature to either monitor the cost of debt recovery or to internally bill their departments/users to become a profit centre rather than a cost centre.
Amongst the commercial firms using AlphaLAW-claimIT is the De Vere Hotel and Leisure Group. The debt recovery department handles the recovery of unpaid hotel bills for all the hotels and sports centres within the group. The decision to handle their own recovery was based upon both cost saving and speed of action. Using external agencies must, by the nature of communicating with outside companies, be slower than an internal operation. Also, it is likely that you will have greater knowledge of the debtor than an external agency and therefore be able to decide upon a course of action that the agency may not be aware.
Another user is Geopost (UK) Ltd,, an international transportation and parcel distributor. GeoPost own Parceline, Interlink Express, Interlink Ireland and Mayne Logistics. Here, all debt recovery is handled from within one department. In this instance, the importing capabilities of claimIT are fully utilised. Details of bad debts are transferred from their main accounting system directly into claimIT. Not only does this save considerable time in re-entering the data but also eliminates any potential errors that may occur during this operation.
Protheroes, an independent motor group in Market Harborough, use claimIT for the recovery of bad debts associated with the operation of a car dealership.
AlphaLAW-claimIT is not an expensive system. In most instances the cost of claimIT has been recovered within a very short period of operation.
Whatever the size of your unpaid bills problem AlphaLAW-claimIT will undoubtedly prove to be of considerable benefit in greatly reducing the cost of this most serious burden to modern business.
Reprint from credittoday magazine February 2003