Credit Control

Keeping an Eye on Who Owes What

Which Reminder Level Is Each Customer At

The Credit Control Lines list shows every customer's current escalation level at a glance — useful for a collections team to prioritise calls to customers already at the final level, rather than working through the Aged Receivable report (Financial Reports course) blind to reminder history.

Combining With Aged Receivable

Credit Control tells you what's been sent; Aged Receivable (Financial Reports course) tells you how much is outstanding and how overdue. Use them together: a customer showing 90+ days overdue on Aged Receivable but still only at Level 1 in Credit Control usually means the policy needs a manual escalation or a phone call, not another automated email.

Best Practices

• Run Credit Control on a fixed schedule (e.g. daily or weekly), not sporadically — inconsistent timing undermines the whole point of an escalation policy.
• Actually review Ignored/Error lines each run rather than letting them silently pile up.
• Keep policy tone genuinely escalating — a Level 3 "final notice" that reads the same as Level 1 loses credibility with repeat late payers.
• Coordinate with Sales/Account Managers before a strategic customer receives an automated firm/final-notice reminder — sometimes a phone call should happen first.

From Overdue Invoice to Sent Reminder

Running the Policy

1. Go to Accounting > Management > Credit Control Run → set the run date (usually today) → Generate Credit Lines.
2. Quickenerp scans every overdue invoice, determines which policy level (if any) applies right now, and creates a Credit Control Line for each.

Reviewing Before Sending

Lines start Draft and need triage:

• To Do – confirmed, ready to actually send.
• Ignored – mark a specific line to skip (e.g. you already know the customer disputes this invoice and a reminder would be premature/incorrect).
• Queued → Done – sent successfully.
• Error / Emailing Error – something failed (e.g. missing customer email) — review and correct before re-attempting.

Communications

Multiple overdue lines for the same customer at the same level are grouped into one Communication rather than sending a separate email per invoice — a customer with 4 overdue invoices at Level 1 gets one consolidated reminder listing all 4, not 4 separate emails.

Sending

Confirm the To Do lines and send communications — either individually reviewed each run, or, once you trust the process, mark lines "To Do" and send in bulk. Keep reviewing at least the first few runs manually before fully automating.

Designing Your Collections Escalation

Go to Accounting > Configuration > Credit Control Policies → Create.

Adding Levels

Each level defines:

• Compute Mode – how the delay is measured: from the invoice's Due Date, Due Date, End of Month (rounds to month-end, common for consolidated monthly statements), or from the Previous Reminder (each level counts from when the last one went out, not the original due date).
• Delay (Days) – how many days after that reference point this level triggers.
• Channel – how the reminder goes out (email, physical letter — see the SMS & Snail Mail course for the postal option).
• Email Template – the message used at this level.
• Custom Message – text specific to this escalation stage (friendly at Level 1, firm at Level 3).
• Show Invoice Details – whether to list every overdue invoice's specifics in the reminder, or keep it a simple notice.

A Typical 3-Level Policy

1. Level 1 (7 days overdue) – friendly email reminder, invoice details included.
2. Level 2 (30 days overdue) – firmer email, cc'd to a manager.
3. Level 3 (60 days overdue) – final notice, potentially by post as well as email.

Assigning a Policy

Set a default company-wide policy, or override it per customer (e.g. a strategic account gets a gentler policy, a chronically late payer gets a stricter one) on the partner's own record.