Getting SMEs Excited About Debt Collection

Debt collection is hardly something to party over. But a new service that launched in the U.K. this week may get some small business owners to crack a smile when managing outstanding bills — or, in the very least, avoid frustration.

Reports by TechCrunch this week introduced YayPay, based in London, a startup that automates the payments collection and invoicing process for SMEs. The accounts receivable tool was built in an ecosystem in which smaller businesses can wait months to get paid and in which SMEs don’t have the resources to hire a full-time AR staff.

“We’re trying to give small businesses what big businesses have,” Cofounder and CEO Anthony Venus told the site. YayPay emerged at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield competition on Monday (Dec. 7).

According to Cofounder Saul Frank, the platform aggregates small businesses’ outstanding invoices and generates statements from that information. “The idea behind the statement is that you get a collection of invoices, and when you remind customers that they need to pay, you remind them once,” Frank said.

YayPay sends out an automated reminder via email to these customers seven days before an invoice due date. The email contains a link to pay, allowing debtors to settle the bill more easily.

Two days before the due day, YayPay will send another email, as well as a text message. Four days past-due, YayPay actually calls to track down the outstanding payment. Reports said that a commitment to settle a bill over the phone generally leads to an actual payment.

[bctt tweet=”A commitment to settle a bill over the phone generally leads to an actual payment.”]

Reports said YayPay can customize these messages and processes for business users. The company additionally handles the actual payment processing and can provide analytical information regarding a company’s cash flow; for example, YayPay can collect data on a company that consistently fails to pay its bills on time, perhaps making it easier for a small business to mitigate buyer risk in the future.