Knowing how much money you have coming in and getting paid on time is vital for the healthy development of your business.

In Sage 50 Accounts, there are a number of tools available to help you keep the income flowing into your operation. Here we take a look at how you can get the most from them.

1. Apply credit terms to your invoices

Do your customers know when they need to pay you by? You can add credit terms in your customer records, the information can then be shown on your invoices, leaving your customers in no doubt of when they need to pay you by.

• Double-click the required customer > Credit control > enter the required details and terms > Save > Close.
• You can then edit your invoice layout to display these terms, find out more >>

2. Encourage your customers to pay you more quickly

So you’ve added credit terms to your customer records, how else can you encourage them to pay you promptly?

• Send invoices by email. The sooner the invoice arrives, the sooner your customer can pay. You can email invoices directly from Sage Accounts.
• Request online card payments. If you use Sage Pay you can email a card payment request direct to your customer.
• Add payment methods to your invoices – Make it clear to your customer how they can pay you, which cards do you accept or can they pay by bank transfer? You can add this information to your invoice layout in a neat text box.

3. Chase your debts

You may do all you can to encourage your customers to pay you on time, but it’s a fact that sometimes payments are late. If they are, there’s a few things you can do to identify the late payments and chase your customers.

• Send customer statements – Keep your customers up to date with what they owe. A range of statements is available for you to print or email in Customers > Statements
• Identify late payments – Aged balance reports show you what your customers owe you and how long the debt has been outstanding. Customers > Reports > Aged Debt.
• Use the Chase Debt view* - You can quickly spot debts in the Customers module by choosing the Chase Debt view in the top right corner.
• Chase customer payments – There are a range of prewritten payment reminder and itemised chase letters in your software. See which ones suit your business in Customers > Letters.
• Use the Cash flow feature* - This option helps you to prioritise which debts to chase first and forecast your cash flow. You can access the option from  Bank Accounts > Cash flow 

*These features aren’t available in Sage 50 Accounts Essentials.

4. Check your reports

As well as looking at individual customers it's good to look at your debt collection performance in general.

• Debt analysis – This option looks at the average time taken to collect debts and is found in: Customer > Debt Analysis.
• Credit Control reports – These reports show the average time customers take to pay, their credit limits, how old the debts are and any disputes or accounts on hold. You can find them in Customers > Reports > Credit Control.

For more cash flow tips, see this article: Five ways to streamline your business