Things Your Business Needs To Know About First Party Collections
If you’re a business owner or departmental manager who does any kind of collections activities, you’re already pursuing first party collections, though you may not have known it. First party collections means precisely that: attempting to collect on debt for your own company instead of sending your accounts to a third party agency. Any time you make a call asking to remit payment or send a past due notice you’re engaging in the practice of first party collections.
The name “first party collections” means that the entity collecting (or an affiliate was a party to the original transaction. The debtor is referred to as “second party,” and “third party” means another entity that gets involved in the attempts at collection, like a debt collection agency.
First party collections activity has some unique advantages. For one thing, there is no lag in time between an account becoming delinquent and the beginning of the collections process. Also, you have knowledge of your customers’ needs and practices, making it easy to maintain a positive relationship even after debt is incurred, which helps down the road if you want to keep the customer as a client.
Third party collections agencies are sometimes seen as hostile, while if your clients need your product or service to keep his or her business running smoothly, they will strive to stay on your good side. Sometimes just hearing a familiar voice asking nicely for payment is enough to solve the problem.
In addition, first party collections are not governed by the Fair Debt Collection act, believe it or not. This is because under the law the first party or its subsidiary is considered the lender rather than a collector and it means you can do some things that a third party debt collector can’t by law. There are still state and federal laws that apply, though, so make sure you are familiar with all applicable regulations if you go this route.
Most companies handle their own collections for a period of ninety days to six months. Ideally, when the 2-3 month mark comes up and collections efforts aren’t working, it’s common practice for companies to turn over these accounts to a third party agency or “sell” the debt to them, which means the agency pays for the right to keep whatever return they get on the debt.
First party collections are best handled by people or a staff dedicated entirely to collections. Having other members of the staff like your sales force or accounting department is not a good idea. They won’t have the skills, time or motivation to successfully pursue collections as well as collections professionals will.
If you hire an individual or create a department to handle first party collections, however, they can be just as successful as third party collections. If they are knowledgeable in modern collection techniques like private investigation to track down new addresses and phone numbers, offering incentives to get the debtor to call in or working out settlements, first party efforts can be remarkably efficient. When trying to make the decision of which type of collections instruments to use, keep in mind whether you’re spreading your resources too thin or if you have the team in place to do first party collections.
Tags: Accounting, Accounting, accounts receivable, billing, billing services, collection agency, debt management, financial, first party collections, outsource billing
