What is the primary responsibility of the credit and collection department?

We are looking for a competent Collection Specialist to contact clients and collect outstanding payments. You will struck a balance between maintaining trustful relationships, and ensuring timely payments.

Our Collection Specialist should exhibit professionalism and trustworthiness. You should have excellent communication and negotiation skills, as well as an ability to work independently.

Responsibilities

• Monitor accounts to identify outstanding debts
• Investigate historical data for each debt or bill
• Find and contact clients to ask about their overdue payments
• Take actions to encourage timely debt payments
• Process payments and refunds
• Resolve billing and customer credit issues
• Update account status records and collection efforts
• Report on collection activity and accounts receivable status

Requirements and skills

• Proven experience as a Collection Specialist or similar role
• Knowledge of billing procedures and collection techniques (e.g. skip tracing)
• Familiarity with laws related to debt collection (e.g. FDCPA)
• Working knowledge of MS Office and databases
• Comfortable working with targets
• Patience and ability to manage stress
• Excellent communication skills (written and oral)
• Skilled in negotiation
• Problem-solving skills
• High school diploma; Associate’s/Bachelor’s degree is a plus

Frequently asked questions

What does a Collections Specialist do?

A Collections Specialist is the go-to person for any company with debt. They are in charge of resolving overdue bills and collecting payments from those individuals or businesses responsible for them, all while protecting their employer's financial assets.

What are the duties and responsibilities of a Collections Specialist?

A Collections Specialist will work with the Accounts Receivable Manager to find customers who have unpaid collections and then work with those debtors to resolve those debts.

Debt collection and recovery guidelines, alongside debt collection software for banks, help banks and credit unions remain in compliance and control risk. Clear debt collection strategies also ensure trustworthy and efficient administration that helps debt collectors realize those objectives.

Solid business principles of bank collections are valuable to banks and credit unions in many ways.   Payments pursued with robust principals of bank collections enable collectors to obtain owed funds, maintain systematic follow-up, engage customers, and preserve goodwill.

Collect More Accounts With The #1 Debt Collection Software

For money collection, the primary responsibility of a bank debt collections department is to gather the money as close to the terms of the obligation as possible. The debtor has an obligation to pay within the terms of the agreement. The tone may be tolerant at first, but should be intensified and accelerated as much as necessary to ensure payment by a debtor.

Accurate information analysis and a well-defined policy can help financial institutions to address issues within the company’s objectives. It can also allow for flexible consideration of the economic climate in general, the importance of the customer, and the effect of the combination of dollars and number of customers delinquent on the entire portfolio of receivables.

Debts and the debt collections process can be efficiently managed with CARM-Pro™ – Collection and Recovery Manager – Professional by Intelligent Banking Solutions.  CARM-Pro™ is vigorous bank loan collection and recovery software that helps banks and credit unions increase revenues and reduce costs with improved compliance, resource efficiency, and superior reporting.

Systematic Follow-Up and Discussion

Following the initial engagement with a delinquent borrower, it is important to maintain a firm schedule of subsequent communications.  Information about payments should be noted in each borrower’s file.

For all debts owed, methodical follow-up on accounts, even those which cannot pay right away, reinforces the serious status of outstanding debt.  It also emphasizes the importance attached to it by the creditor. That in itself is an important advantage.

Consider the pattern of payment, whether there have been partial payments or any effort to settle the debt. Has the customer made any sincere effort attempt to take care of the obligation? If the customer is new, you owe it to them and your company to make your policy clear from the start. Neglecting delinquency at this time is inviting problems forever with the account. If it is an old customer, how has the payment pattern been? What about previous delinquencies? Is there a problem with the product or service?

The object of the discussion remains obtaining the debtor’s explanation for the delinquency. Is it due to a dispute; temporary shortage of funds; or the customer intention to hold off payment so the creditor’s money goes elsewhere?

The same investigative and analytical tactics used for credit approval are applicable for the process.

CARM-Pro could root out problems before they occur. It keeps the necessary information current, compliant and organized with robust software.

Maintaining Support

A customer experiencing difficulty in meeting payments can still become a good customer in the future. Consequently, it is important to show empathy and preserve goodwill while pursuing repayment of debt. This requires discretion, plus familiarity of the customer and industry.

Previous dealings with the customer can help. How has the customer lived up to its commitments in the past? Has the account ever been closed and reopened?

Good business requires the prompt settlement of invoices without any damage resulting to the customer relationship.

One of the advantages of a specialized bank collection system is maintaining vital information that can help credit and customer service personnel to better understand the relationship of the customer and overall marketing objectives of the financial institution.

The IBS Online Self-Guided User Training Modules provides interactive training at no additional cost to support IBS clients, allowing platform users to take the online classes based on their availability.

What is the role of credit and collection?

What are the responsibilities of the credit management department?

What is the function of the collection department?

Who is responsible for credit and collection in a company?