To operate a organization profitably, every owner has to stay on top of their receivables and check their cash flow. Whether you promote a product or offer a service, you probably have to deal with late-paying or none-paying customers from time to time. That means that you have to have a sound, consistent internal debt recovery policy in place. Part of your policy should include knowing when to contract out problem accounts to a debt collection agency.

One principal reason this is valid is because your delinquent accounts continue to decrease in value, at a rate of 15% per month. And the longer an account goes delinquent, the more challenging AND expensive it is to collect. In addition to spending more time, money and resources going after these depreciating accounts, its also costing your organization in lost opportunity dollars, by taking you away from your core revenue-generating operations. It is far more cost effective and efficient to outsource these tricky accounts to a unbiased third party debt collection agency.

Here are three main tips to bear in mind when hiring a debt collection agency.

When hiring a debt collection agency, you need to make sure they are licensed in the state(s) where your debtors are located. Because collection laws can vary significantly by state, its to your benefit to look at collection agencies that are accredited nationwide. Because we live in such a transient culture, and with people moving across state lines a lot, its better to know a debt collection agency that is accredited in all states are familiar with all the different laws and policies. In fact, collection agencies can only collect in the states they hold a license in.

Fee structures can differ greatly with different collection agencies. Some propose prepaid, flat fee arrangements, as others cost a percentage of any monies collected, normally with no upfront costs necessary. Still others can propose some combination of the two. Depending on your organization, there are advantages to either situation. Even though there are upfront costs with flat fee based debt collection agencies, you can save a lot of money in the long run, since the collection costs tend to be a tiny proportion of the total dollars collected.

Because your costs are unchanging, you can also turn over problem accounts earlier, when there’s a better likelihood for collecting your money. Again, the longer you procrastinate, the more difficult it is to collect.

Still, many organizations opt to give up a percentage of whatever might be collected to preclude the upfront dollar costs. Be sure to compare rates though: a debt collection agency can charge anywhere from 20-50% in contingency fees. One thing to keep in mind though: while you might be inclined to seek out the lowest fees, you should also know that if the fees are very low, it can mean the debt collection agency has inadequate staff, time and resources that they will dedicate to collecting your accounts. Although percentage fees charged are significant, success in total recovery is far more principal to your business bottom line. Whichever option you choose, make sure the debt collection agency you’re considering spells out their fee structure clearly in writing.

Finally, when considering a debt collection agency, you need to think of them as an extension of your organization. Because they will be collecting your money and acting on your behalf, its main that they reflect your organization’s values. For instance, if you run a medical practice, your status in the community is something you value. You wouldn’t want to affiliate with a debt collection agency known to engage in insensitive, hostile and/or inhumane behavior when handling patient collections. At the same time, you want a collection agency that while diplomatic, they are resolute, steady and consistent in their collections activity.

With all the changes in the economy and changes in federal tax codes and mortgages as well as foreclosures taken in, many more people find it necessary to contact the IRS to try to obtain the answers to their questions about their particular situation.

The IRS maintains a team of trained professionals on hand to answer any questions you may have and direct you to the correct answer to your question. So when you contact the IRS you will absolutely talk directly to people who should have the right answer to the question or know exactly where to go to get the answer for you.

While it might take you several hours on the web to locate the right solution, when you Contact The IRS you can get that same answer in the matter of moments. The people there are trained to answer your questions and if it is something that is out of his or her area of expertise, there are always supervisors above them that can answer the questions.

You can always get help about tax on their website. You can also download forms for instructions and the forms themselves in different ways and there are even records of older forms as well as instructions if you need to amend a return from a prior year.

As you Contact The IRS and navigate to the help page you will see various avenues to utilize for contacting them. This includes an entire page full of phone numbers that specialize in the answering of irs mileage rate from refund due dates to complicated tax code related issues.

You can speak directly with a representative of the IRS if you need a personal reply to a specific question or if you contact the IRS for general questions, you can also access recorded information, which may reduce your waiting time, especially in peak periods.

The help available when you Contact The IRS is broken down into a special line for Individuals and one for businesses.

You can find an area for IRS people who are outside the United States and a link to help you find an office where you can actually go and have a face-to-face talk with someone from the Internal Revenue Service.

You do not need to worry about the fear of trying to contact the IRS, for most part they are there to help you make a resolution to your problem.