How do I disconnect from Xero?

From our web portal, navigate to the My Details page and hit the Disconnect from Xero button or:

From within Xero, navigate to your organisation name, settings, connected apps, disconnect app.

When and how does data sync occur?

We display data form your Xero account in real-time.

How much does the service cost?

There is no additional cost to use the Xero connection. Our costs for commission and so on are all as per our existing terms and conditions.

Does EC Credit Control write anything back to Xero?

Not that this stage but it is something we are working on for the future.

What doesn’t our Xero Connection Do?

Our connection to Xero doesn’t write a note back to the Xero invoice when you refer it for collection. We acknowledge that this would be useful and it is something we will work on in the future.

Our Xero connection doesn’t cost you anything more than loading debts online manually would.

Our Xero connection doesn’t reduce our fees / charges for collecting your debts.

Will there be further enhancements and functionality added in future?

Absolutely! If you have a suggestion please contact us. We are already working on a few ideas and scoping their feasibility.

What does the Xero connection do?

Good question. We have listened to our Clients who told us that they wanted the process of loading a best to be more simple and streamlined.

This makes perfect sense as our Clients are business-owners who are often time poor and therefore want a quick and efficient process to enable loading debts and improving their all-important cash-flow.

We then set about interfacing with Xero to enable our mutual customers to load debts with just a few clicks. This means that Clients can get back to the core activity of their business while we do our best to collect their overdues.

The Xero connection enables the EC Credit Control portal to display a list of the Clients overdue invoices. The Client can then select any or all of those invoices and load them for collection with just a few clicks. As part of this process we grab a pdf copy of the invoice from Xero and store it on our file. This allows us to see exactly what the debt is for which helps with our conversations with the debtor and also means we can supply the debtor with a copy of the invoice without bugging the client – not having a copy of the invoice is an excuse often used for why the debt hasn’t been paid.

This means that we can start our collection process quicker, ask for less information from the client and more comprehensively communicate with the debtor which all has a positive impact on the goal of collecting the money as soon as possible.

From a data flow perspective it works like this:

Here is how to load a debt from Xero to EC Credit Control.

Once you have successfully connected your EC Credit Control account to Xero you can then load any debts directly from Xero to EC Credit Control. This means no typing or uploading invoices that you may have otherwise have had to do.

Firstly, you must log in to the EC Credit Control portal.

The portal is located here.

If you haven’t already connected to Xero you will need to do so as per our support article.

Once logged in the steps to take are as follows:

• Click on “My Details”
• Click on “Connect to Xero”
• Authenticate with your Xero credentials
• Click on “Allow Access”
• Click on “Load a Debt”
• Tick the box to agree to our terms and conditions
• Click on “Load from Xero”
• The list of accounts receivable is displayed with the oldest at the top.
• Select the invoice(s) to load for debt collection by ticking the box next to each invoice (if multiple invoices are selected per customer they will be accumulated).
• Click on Submit
• Job done!

We will then pull your customer data from your Xero account (including a copy of the invoice) and immediately load it into our system for collection. Sit back and relax knowing that the experts are doing their best to collect your overdue accounts.

From that point we will be in touch throughout our collection process.

At a recent meeting with a Shop fitter in the Inner West of Sydney, the owner explained that a large local Sydney Inner West business that they had done work for to the value of over $800K to date, went into liquidation. The company still owed the shop fitters $140K which was bad enough in itself. But then they received a demand from the liquidators demanding that the $660K that they had been paid from the liquidated company over the previous 6 months be paid back under the Claw Back provision in the Corporations Act.  

Talk about rubbing salt into the wounds. The preferential payment provision can be invoked by the Liquidator if the insolvent company has paid a creditor within the 6 months prior to the Liquidator being appointed.  

Fortunately for the Shop fitter, the Liquidator had made a fundamental error in their documentation, so with the aid of a Solicitor the Shop fitter managed to escape the Claw Back provision. In the end the shop fitter missed out on the $140K he was still owed and had an expensive legal bill to pay – but a lot less than the $660K they were up for if not successfully defended, which would have put them out of business.  

The moral of the story is, whether you’re based in Sydney’s Inner West or elsewhere in Australia, talk to EC Credit Control about how to protect your business from a costly and painful Preferential Payment claw back scenario.

I recently met with Ray, a builder based in Newtown in Sydney’s inner west. Ray had been trading for over 20 years without any bad debts – a really good effort! Newtown like any other suburb in Sydney’s Inner West has a number of businesses in the construction industry that can fall victim at any time to a bad debt.

After 20 years Ray suddenly had been hit with two big debts at the same time. The first debtor owed him $100,000 and started to question invoices, not only recent ones, but also invoices from previous years. The second, after Ray had supplied 3 months of labour, went into liquidation owing him $80,000. This is a major hit for any small business to try and recover from and highlights the importance of protecting your cash flow with a strong set of Terms of Trade, Contracts and sound Credit Management policy to monitor your clients on 30 day payment terms. Just like insurance on your car you never know when you are going to have to rely on it.

Recently a wine wholesaler, based in the Inner West of Sydney was very happy when EC Credit collected a debt of $12,500 and their Debtor was forced to pay all of the collection costs our client incurred, as per the debtor had previously agreed to. This result was achieved because our client had proactively invested in implementing Terms of Trade documentation back in 2012.

Wherever your business is located in Sydney’s Inner Western Suburbs, EC Credit Control has the resources and knowledge to help you protect your cash flow.