Who Is Responsible, Telling Customers how much they owe?

[twocents]

This is a hard question to ask in just the title.
I am not a trained accountant where I work: I mostly just post invoices, try and do these damnable ship & debits, statements, post Credit card bills.
We do have customers who get behind, sometimes to the point they are put on 'hold'.
I have a co-worker who likes to delegate and pass off stuff that I really think are his responsibility, but I really do not know the law in these matters, if there be a law.
However, sometimes the salespeople come back and ask about a customer and this guy (who is a trained accountant, he has gone to college with courses in the subject) who will tell the salesperson to specifically tell the customer they need x amount of dollars, that they are x amount of days beyond terms. I really think this is not right, possibly not even legal.
It is only because he (and at the other end) we are dealing with people who absolutely do not know the law (or etiquette even) to say that credit matters belong to the accounting department. Period.
Is there any liability in this?
I only saw one person once tell my co worker where to go in this matter, that it was not her responsibility to tell the customer they were delinquent.
Any ideas?
thanks.

two cents ¢¢

 

[kirby]

Let's look at the confidentiality picture.
In general, you should keep your customers information private within your company.
So there is the issue, does the salesforce have a right to know the past due status of a customer.
Yup, salesforce is within your company and has a business reason to know, different from, say, your janitor.
And even if you wanted to keep that info from them, they find out anyway since a past due customer is "on hold" and cannot buy anything else from them.
And know that most business info systems will provide the salesforce with a customer profile screen that includes the customers credit rating.
Because - think about it - otherwise the poor salesperson makes a sales call only to be told by an angry past due customer "get lost" your credit guys have blocked me. Why did you call? Just to make me more angry??"

That doesn't work.

So your concerns about confidentiality are good.

AND ACTUALLY - your point really is that your coworker just blabs the customer info out loud for all to hear (as you certainly hear it) and that is what should be corrected.

 

[twocents]

thank you...
I may need to explain things a tad better. The company i work for isn't a storefront business. We distribute breakers, fuses, cables, etc. We have very very few 'walk ins'. Most are customers who send us orders. We buy from other vendors and in turn, ship them out.
What my concern is, is that my co worker who is the accounting manager should be the one who is calling customers about delinquent status. I don't think our sales people should be the ones who tell these customers that they need to send a check. I think the only thing that salespeople should say is that the customer needs to get in touch with accounting, This is the point of which I'm unsure. I do think there is some lee way perhaps. Confidentially it does stay within the company, but I just get the suspicion that my co worker is trying to dump work on others. Which sort of leads to another question: just how much can one accountant handle?

 

[kirby]

A company will have a collections department separate from its sales force so that the sales force can play "good cop" while the collections dept plays "bad cop." So you have a good point in that when the sales force crosses over these lines then the "good cop/bad cop" distinction is lost and the danger is that the customer can get angry at the salesforce and not the collections dept.

 

[Samir]

There's nothing unethical or wrong about the process you're describing. It's just bad management.

 

[Counterofbeans]

What my concern is, is that my co worker who is the accounting manager should be the one who is calling customers about delinquent status. I don't think our sales people should be the ones who tell these customers that they need to send a check. I think the only thing that salespeople should say is that the customer needs to get in touch with accounting, This is the point of which I'm unsure. I do think there is some lee way perhaps. Confidentially it does stay within the company, but I just get the suspicion that my co worker is trying to dump work on others. Which sort of leads to another question: just how much can one accountant handle?

I don't want to get in the middle of someone trying to dump their work on to others. That very well could be the case, so my next comment isn't intended to be all-inclusive...

Unfortunately, I would have to disagree with you. I do not believe that collections rests solely within AR (or collection department)/accounting. I believe it's a joint effort most certainly to be shared within the sales department at times. Ultimately, getting a sale isn't what's important--collecting the cash related to such sale is and we make sure our sales department not only understands this, but, at times, reaches out to the customer and explains just how important reducing their outstanding balance is. At times, certain customers have to pay prior to shipping them product (e.g. they are in bankruptcy or such) & we will work closely with sales to get transactions like this done.

As such, it may not necessarily be a bad thing that the accounting manager is having sales reach out to the customers for payment. As a matter of fact, properly done, I'd say it's probably a best practice.

At the end of the day, I want the cash deposited into my bank account and I'll gladly use any reasonable resource I've got to help that process along, including having the sales team speak to their customers directly about it.


Hope that helps