Company Credit Application

To offer credit can and does enable the small business to increase there sales dramatically, but what we must all remember is although we can increase our sales, we also need to ensure the sales invoice we generate can be liquidated with the funds from your customer.

The Association of credit protection was formed with this one theme in mind to offer the small business man all the tools to ensure they can control and enforce there sales ledger yet keep full control themselves.

Offering credit is a complex procedure and become more complex in an ever decreasing world with people and companies moving location at ease, gone are the days when you can offer credit because you believe you can trust them to pay or because they live or trade not far away.

In todays complex would you first aim when offering a customer credit is to document who he is what i mean by this is there "legal entity?"

For Example:

• Mr and Mrs Smith trading as "legit& co"
   
• Mr smith Trading as "legit& Co"
   
• ABC Ltd Trading as "Legit& co"
   
• Smith Associates trading as "Legit& Co"

as well as many other options!

A "credit application form" is the usual and most trusted method that enables you customer "John Smith" to inform you, who he is requesting credit on behalf of, as he would only be solely liable for one of the above options.

After you have understood the exact legal entity that the individual is representing, you will need to check there ability to pay you the total value of the invoice in "X" amount of days or the completion / delivery of your work. There are many methods to do this, "The Association of Credit Providers" offers most of them as a service to its members "credit checking"

A copy of the "terms of credit" should be delivered with correspondence indicating approval or refusal of credit. The aim of agreeing to the terms is simply to agree to the arrangements of the credit you offer, and to ensure you don't loose your customer because of misunderstandings. The "terms of credit" should be signed by the customer and faxed back, before forwarding to you, we hold a copy for you in our "document bank"

On receipt of the signed "terms of credit" we activate the credit limit on your customer, and update the "credit community" to inform all other members of the "credit community" of the positive information.

Inclusion of the above information into the "credit community" will assist your customer to get credit else wear and there for aid in there prosperity.