Outstanding Debts Protocol

DoES Liverpool has struggled to spot when debts are building up for our members. Sometimes these are for people who have left and have not informed us, and so invoices are going out unnecessarily, but sometimes these are real debts from people who are actively using the space.

For people who are actually using the space it's important that we do receive payment as DoES has large outgoings and is generally only just breaking even.

We don't want members to be in a position where they have large debts hanging over them. We would prefer to spot problems earlier and work with people, perhaps discussing changing their membership to something more affordable.

As such we have agreed a protocol that we will follow to check for debts once a month so that we can identify people that might be having problems and work with them to resolve them.

• Identify aged debts - often this will be for someone who has many outstanding invoices, but can equally be for very old invoices that have remained unpaid.
• If you know the person involved is still attending the space, contact them directly to remind them of their outstanding payments and, if necessary, arrange a payment plan.
• If you don't know the person, contact the organisers group. It may be that someone who is in at other times will know whether they are still coming in to DoES.
• If you have confirmation that a person is no longer using the facilities, the likelihood is that they have simply not informed us of their decision to leave. These invoices can be written off, and the recurring invoice cancelled.
• If no-one is sure of a user's status, contact them directly and ask whether or not they are using the space, and, if not, when they stopped. Any invoices after this time should be referred to the directors for confirmation, and then can be written off.

If in any doubt, refer any final decisions to the directors.