Why most collection efforts don't work
Most garment businesses do chase payments — they just don't do it systematically. Someone calls a few parties when the outstanding gets too high. Big parties get attention, small ones get ignored. There's no record of what was said, no follow-up date set, and the same conversation happens again next month because nothing was logged.
The result: money stays stuck for months that should have come in within weeks.
The idea behind a chase list
A chase list is simple: every party who owes you money, ranked by urgency, with a clear action for today. Not a long overdue report you have to read and interpret — an actual list of who to call, in order, with the key numbers already there.
The ranking matters. Calling a party with ₹5,000 overdue before a party with ₹2 lakh and 90-day silence is wasted time. A good chase list puts the most urgent cases at the top, factoring in overdue amount, how long they've been silent, broken promises, and whether their payments have been getting worse.
What happens on the call
The call itself is only useful if something is logged after it. When your team opens a party, they should see:
- Outstanding and overdue at a glance
- Last contact date and what was said
- Any promise made — amount and date
After the call, they log a remark: what was discussed, what the party committed to, and when to follow up. This one habit changes everything. A follow-up date means the party doesn't fall off the list — they come back on the day they promised payment.
Tracking broken promises
When a party says "I'll pay by the 20th" and the 20th passes with nothing — that's a broken promise. Logging it matters because three broken promises in a row is a serious warning sign. It changes how you deal with that party: stricter terms, smaller credit, or a supply hold.
Without tracking, broken promises just disappear. With tracking, patterns become visible and your risk decisions get sharper.
A daily routine, not a monthly panic
The biggest shift is moving from reactive (chasing when it's already a problem) to proactive (a short daily call session working through today's list). Twenty calls a day, every day, beats a hundred calls at month-end when everyone is already stressed.
See how SAHAY AI builds your daily chase list automatically — explore SAHAY AI.
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