How to offer credit control as a service to clients using Satago

Steve Timmis is the director of Sempar Accountancy & Tax, a firm with a broad range of 300 clients in sectors including communications, creative services, hospitality and retail. Here, Steve shares how he started offering credit control as a service to clients using Satago.

The client problem and the solution

Steve’s practice is client-focused; they like to have an overview of products coming into the market so they can actively find solutions for clients when problems arise.

“Clients wanted to automate more of their credit control” says Steve, “Xero does some of that for them but the Satago product is far more enhanced. Xero does a lot of things and does them very well, but we found we needed something a bit more sophisticated for automated credit control. 95% of our clients are on Xero and Satago is really easy to plug in.”  

How Steve launched credit control as a service for clients

Steve spent time talking to the Satago team and building the proposition that he wanted to deliver for his clients. Once he had the details in place, he began rolling out a four-month trial period with a select group of clients.

During this trial period, he integrated a credit control discovery process into the client workflow in order to onboard clients to the service.

“For any new client coming onboard we’ll do what we call a ‘discovery’, which is spending the time understanding the customers and their relationships, making sure all the data is correct and the credit control emails are going to the right people.”

The firm also set up a debtor days report for their clients, which demonstrates the effect that Satago’s automated credit control has on their aged debt.

“We continually report to the client the debtor days they’re achieving. It goes back to cost verses benefit, if they’re paying £200 a month for credit control but they’ve got an extra £15,000 a month in their bank, it’s a no-brainer.”

Following the success of the trial, the firm is now ready to launch Satago across their full client base. This will take three to six months, with Steve aiming to onboard 10 to 15 clients a month. Within three months, the amount of time it takes to manage credit control for each client falls to one hour a week, so Steve estimates that one member of staff can manage between 30 to 50 clients.

Pricing

The firm offer the ‘discovery’ process without obligation or cost. The discovery process takes one to two hours and helps them determine the level of service each client will need.

They price the service between £250 to £300 a month based on the number of active customers a client has.

Results for the clients

• Over the three-to-four-month trial period, Steve saw a significant reduction in client debtor days.
• One client dropped from 144 debtor days down to below 40 in one month.
• The same client’s cash balance went up by £25,000.
• By bringing credit control disciplines into place, clients were able to collect money they would otherwise have written off.
• Clients resolved some invoice disputes which led to customers re-engaging and offering the client more work.
• Clients are pleased with the service and glad to have someone taking care of conversations with customers that can feel awkward.

“The clients are really happy. There’s a feeling of relief, just by bringing credit control disciplines in, they’re able to collect money that they’d have otherwise written off. They’re relieved that someone else is picking credit control up and having those conversations with their customers.”

Results for the firm

• The service is already paying dividends for Sempar Accountancy & Tax and this revenue will increase as more clients come onboard.
• As the trials progressed, the amount of time it took to manage the service went down to just one hour a week per client.
• The firm is now ready to roll the credit control service out to their full client base with one member of staff managing 30 to 50 clients.
• Steve is pleased that he can offer a service that clients didn’t have capacity for, at a much cheaper rate than the cost of recruiting someone to manage that service internally.

If you’re interested in offering credit control as a service to your clients, sign up to Satago online or get in touch with our team today to book a demo.