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C2C Resources Knowledge Center

Credit and collection insights.

Practical guides from our collections team on getting paid, extending credit safely, and protecting your business when an account goes bad. Written for commercial creditors, with templates and scripts you can use today.

A credit manager at a grey office desk, pen in hand, checking a red account folder beside her open laptop before placing the account with a commercial collection agencyLatest
Collections

How to Place an Account With a Commercial Collection Agency

The placement checklist: what to send, when to send it, what the collector needs to know that is not on the invoice, what stalls a file in the first week, and which accounts on the aging report should go first.

· Guide · 9 min read Read the guide
A supplier and a business customer seated across a dark office desk, smiling as they work through an unpaid invoice on a printed statement, one of them holding a pen
Collections

Will Sending an Account to Collections Lose the Customer?

Usually not. Most placements end with the customer still buying, on prepayment for a while. What actually ends the relationship, how to tell the customer, how a collector protects the account, and the four situations where you should not place.

· Guide · 10 min read
A bearded credit manager in glasses and a dark blazer lifting a printed aging report off a clipboard beside his laptop, checking how long an unpaid commercial invoice has been outstanding
Collections

How Long Does Commercial Debt Collection Take?

A realistic stage by stage timeline from an agency handling about 25,000 claims a year, why the age of the invoice decides more than the agency does, what makes an account collect fast, and when placing it is the wrong call.

· Guide · 9 min read
An experienced credit manager in glasses writing a note on a customer file beside his monitor, the point at which a past due account is put on credit hold
Credit

When to Put a Customer on Credit Hold, and How to Lift It

A credit hold is the one lever credit controls without asking anyone. The written triggers that should place one, the call that lifts most of them, what a hold should never be used for, and the conditions for taking it off.

· Guide · 9 min read
A woman at an office desk pressing an embossing seal onto a printed document, the kind of official paperwork a licensed and bonded collection agency keeps current in every state that requires it
Collections

Does a Collection Agency Need a License in Every State?

No, and the real question is which states do. How licensing works for commercial agencies, what a license and a $500,000 surety bond actually require, and the public checks to run before you place an account.

· Guide · 8 min read
A credit manager at an office desk reading two printed invoice pages beside an open laptop while checking the paperwork on an unpaid account
Collections

Can You Collect a Past Due Invoice Without a Signed Contract?

What makes a business debt collectable, which documents prove the agreement when nobody signed one, where the $500 writing rule actually bites, and what to pull together before you place the account.

· Guide · 8 min read
An accounts receivable clerk typing a collection email at an office keyboard while holding a printed invoice, with a desk phone and stacks of paperwork beside her
Collections

Collection Email Templates: What to Send at 15, 30, 60 and 90 Days Past Due

Four collection emails that each escalate something real, with wording you can adapt, plus the reason most accounts receivable sequences quietly stop working after the second message.

· Guide · 9 min read
A credit manager in glasses reviewing a printed final demand letter on a clipboard at an office desk
Collections

What a Final Demand Letter Should Say Before You Place the Account

A final demand letter is a deadline with a consequence attached, not a firmer reminder. What belongs in it, the four things that quietly destroy it, and when to skip the letter entirely.

· Guide · 8 min read
A credit manager at an office desk reviewing a printed accounts receivable performance report beside a laptop
Credit

Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): What It Tells You and How to Bring It Down

How to calculate DSO honestly, what the gap against your own terms is really reporting, the four causes behind a rising number, and the point at which an account stops being an average you can manage.

· Guide · 9 min read
A controller and a credit manager reviewing an accounts receivable aging report together at an office desk
Collections

Accounts Receivable Outsourcing: When It Makes Sense and What to Keep In House

Where an outsourced receivables program earns its keep, the three failure modes that sink one, what should never leave your building, and how first party follow up differs from placing an account.

· Guide · 8 min read
A credit manager and a business customer reviewing a commercial credit application together at an office desk
Credit

The 5 Cs of Credit: How B2B Credit Managers Actually Use Them

Character, capacity, capital, collateral and conditions, translated out of bank lending and into a trade account: which two Cs carry the weight, how to turn them into a limit, and what the framework leaves out.

· Guide · 9 min read
Credit manager reviewing a past due business account statement before placing it with a commercial collection agency
Collections

How Does a Commercial Collection Agency Work?

What happens to a past due business account after you place it, from formal demand and skip tracing to negotiation, remittance and the point where an attorney belongs.

· Guide · 8 min read
A pair of glasses and a pencil resting on a yellow envelope on a clean office desk, ready for a commercial collection letter
Collections

Commercial Collection Letters: Templates, Samples, and Examples

The full letter sequence, what every letter must contain, and copy-and-paste templates for each stage, from a friendly reminder through three versions of a final demand.

Guide · 9 min read
An accounts receivable specialist on a collection call at her office desk with a laptop and notebook open in front of her
Collections

How to Make Collection Calls That Get You Paid

How to prepare, reach the right person, and run the conversation, with a word-for-word initial call script and two voicemail scripts you can adapt.

Guide · 8 min read
Two business people shaking hands across an office desk over a credit application before extending business credit
Credit

How to Extend Business Credit Without Getting Burned

The three questions to ask before approving an account, how to build a credit application that holds up later, reading a commercial credit report, and what changes internationally.

Guide · 5 min read
Two business colleagues in an office reviewing a printed document together to agree on payment terms
Credit

Business Payment Terms: Setting Net 30, 60, and When to Change Them

Whether Net 30 is really your best default, how to adjust terms as an account proves itself, and how to spot terms that are quietly starving your cash flow.

Guide · 4 min read
Three business people at a table as one signs a document, as when a creditor files a proof of claim in a customer bankruptcy
Risk

When a Customer Files Bankruptcy: What to Do and What You Can Recover

The steps to take the moment you hear, why the automatic stay means you must stop, what happens to the money you are owed, and whether you can get your product back.

Guide · 4 min read
Two warehouse staff reviewing a clipboard checklist of delivered goods, the inventory a reclamation letter demands back
Collections

Reclamation Letters: How to Demand Your Goods Back

What a reclamation letter is, the very short deadline that decides whether it works, and exactly what to include, with a demand skeleton to take to counsel.

Guide · 4 min read
A man in glasses searching records on a laptop at an office desk, tracing a customer who has gone quiet
Collections

Skip Tracing: How to Find a Customer Who Has Gone Quiet

When a missing account is worth chasing, where to look first using records you already have, and the point at which a professional will find people you cannot.

Guide · 3 min read