Now more than ever your business needs to be protected against insolvent customers - but your internal processes are just as important as your terms and conditions.

The start of 2009 was anything but happy for many retailers, with the disappearance of a host of well known high street names like Woolworths, MFI and Zavvi.

But it's not just retailers that are feeling the economic downturn's impact, their suppliers are also under pressure.  In our recent briefcase article Minding Your Ts & Cs we outlined the importance of key clauses like retention of title, that businesses should consider including in their terms and conditions of sale to help minimise the impact of a customer’s insolvency. 

However, simply including a retention of title clause in your terms and conditions of sale is not enough to protect your business in the event of a customer’s insolvency.  We have seen plenty of recent examples of suppliers being unable to recover goods from an insolvent customer - even though their standard terms and conditions contained a valid retention of title clause - simply because they failed to adequately incorporate their terms and conditions of sale into a customer contract.

In many cases, all that is needed to ensure the incorporation of terms and conditions of sale, is a change to the supplier’s business processes. It could be as simple as circulating a letter to all customers advising them of the supplier’s terms or including those terms on the back of order forms.

If you would like Harvey Ingram to review your processes to help safeguard your business and get maximum protection from customer insolvency, please contact:

Marion Kinshuck on 0121 214 1209 or email Marion here.
Akmol Ali on 0116 257 6136 or email Akmol here.
Gayle Folkard on 0116 257 6132 or email Gayle here.