Should your sales team collect payments, or someone else?

By Gaurav Gupta, Founder & CEO, GGA India

Last reviewed: 9 November 2026

Direct answer. Your sales team should handle collections only on the accounts it is still selling to, where the next order and the payment move together. Post-sale service and AMC invoices, project close-outs and customers who have stopped ordering need one named owner from submission to cash. That money is rarely lost. Nobody owns it, and that is a design gap, not a sales failure.

GGA India at a glance

GGA India Private Limited is a B2B revenue-realization firm, operating since 2002, headquartered in Gurugram.
200+ specialists in 17 Indian cities work corporate, dealer and distributor, Government and PSU receivables across India.
Success commission is based on cash actually received. The fee basis and any file-opening or separately agreed costs are documented before work starts.
Your customers pay you directly. GGA never receives or holds your money.
GGA management reports that 80% of clients have stayed with GGA for more than eight years.

What is probably going on

Sales is paid for the next order; the invoices that slip are the ones with no next order attached. A salesperson who follows up an overdue invoice from a customer still buying is protecting the next sale. Chasing a year-old AMC bill, a retention release or a customer who left spends selling hours on work the role does not reward. Hiring someone to chase harder misses the point; GGA's first step is to find who should own each invoice. Where the gap sits decides who that is:

Incentive design. Variable pay counts orders booked, or the month's collection total regardless of age. If an old invoice and a current one earn the salesperson the same credit, the old one waits, and it is an incentive gap.
Many hands, no owner. Billing raises the invoice, logistics delivers, service closes the visit, finance books the receipt; each assumes someone else follows up. If you ask who owns ten overdue invoices and get no single name for each, it is an ownership gap.
Wrong door at the customer. The salesperson knows the buyer and the plant head, not the payables officer or treasury. If nobody in your company can name the person who releases payment, it is a reach gap that sales cannot close.
Knowledge that left. A salesperson moved territory or left; rates agreed on calls and promises made went too. If the overdue clusters in territories that changed hands in the last year, it is a continuity gap.

The pattern behind it. Here, revenue sold but not collected traces mainly to a cause inside your company: the role that wins the order is not built to own the invoice once the order is closed. GGA's answer is the Invoice Lifecycle Owner — one person answerable for each material invoice from submission to cash, alongside sales rather than instead of it. Revenue realization for corporate customers shows how this works with direct B2B accounts. For the founder's view of when a payment problem really starts in the sale itself, read when a collection problem is a sales problem.

Your options

Split ownership by type of money, not by department.

Exhibit 1: Who should own which payments

Option	When it works	Typical time	Cost	Effect on the relationship
Sales owns all collections, with a collections incentive	Few customers, all still ordering, short credit terms	Next incentive cycle	Incentive payout plus selling hours	Good on live accounts; old balances still drift
Sales owns live accounts; your finance or credit team owns overdue	You can staff people who call payables and reconcile ledgers	1–3 months to set up	Salaries and training	Neutral
Split by invoice type: sales keeps order-linked invoices; a named owner takes post-sale, close-out and stopped accounts	Most B2B books with service, AMC or project revenue	2–4 weeks to agree scope	Owner's time or a partner's fee	Positive: sales keeps the customer conversation
A receivables partner owns the money nobody owns	The internal team is fully loaded or the overdue is spread across cities	Weeks to start	Fee on cash received only	Positive when the partner works from documents, not pressure
Legal recovery	Genuine credit risk; the customer can pay and will not	Months to years	Advocate and court fees	Ends the relationship

On incentives: if you pay sales for collections, pay on invoices settled by the due date, not on the month's total. A monthly total can be met from fresh invoices while older ones roll a bucket older.

What to do this week

Five steps tell you how much of your overdue has no owner.

Pull your top 30 overdue invoices and write one name against each. Leave the field blank where nobody can be named.
Tag each by type: order-linked, post-sale (service, spares, AMC), project close-out, or customer no longer ordering.
Read your incentive scheme for one question: does it reward an invoice paid on time more than one paid late?
Ask each salesperson for 20 minutes per key account: contacts, promises and sensitivities. Record it in a file your company keeps.
Total the blanks. That is the money nobody owns, and the number to bring to your next management review.

When to bring someone in

Bring in help when the blanks are larger than your team's capacity to work them. Watch for four signs. Post-sale and close-out invoices make up a growing share of the overdue. Sales reviews spend more time on old dues than on the pipeline. Finance can list the invoices but not the reason each is unpaid. A key salesperson's exit has left balances no one can explain.

What GGA would do

We don't touch the money your sales team sells. We collect the money nobody owns. In practice, sales keeps every account it is still selling to, and GGA takes the invoices that have no salesperson behind them.

Days 1–5: sort the book by owner. Order-linked invoices stay with sales; the rest come to GGA, with your written agreement on scope. You receive: the overdue split into "sales owns" and "nobody owns", by value and customer.
Week 2: brief with sales. One short session per key account. You receive: account notes — contacts, commitments, sensitivities — held in a record your company owns.
Weeks 2–4: validate and reconcile the invoices in scope against PO, delivery proof and the customer's ledger. You receive: an exception list for billing and agreed balances by customer.
Month 2 onwards: own new post-sale invoices from submission, before the due date, so they reach the customer's payment run on time. You receive: a fortnightly review; sales hears of any account issue before it reaches the customer's management.
By month 6: paid or classified as at risk or not collectable, the reason evidenced. You receive: a monthly report and the repeat causes to feed back into billing and contracting.

For a heavy-industry client, the share of the book more than 60 days past due fell from 25% to under 5%. Success commission is based on cash actually received. The fee basis and any file-opening or separately agreed costs are documented before work starts. Work begins with a complimentary Receivables Position Review.

What we need from you

An ageing with a salesperson column is enough to see where ownership breaks.

To start

Customer-wise ageing with the salesperson or territory for each customer
A summary of how your sales incentive is calculated
The list of service, spares and AMC invoices outstanding
Customers that have not ordered in the last six months, with their balances

To act

Your statement of account for each customer in scope
POs, contracts and proof of delivery or service completion for material invoices
Contacts in each customer's payables and treasury teams, where known
Notes of rates, credit periods or free visits agreed by sales outside the PO
Handover notes from salespeople who have moved on

Missing some of these? Send what you have — telling you what is missing is part of the first reply.

How you stay in control

Sales keeps the customer; you keep every decision.

Your customer pays you directly. GGA never receives or holds your money.
Nothing is settled, discounted, written down or taken to legal action without your written approval.
GGA manages the communication with your customers; escalation steps are discussed with you.
One named GGA owner per account; monthly report to your CEO and CFO, a fortnightly review call, and an immediate flash report when a risk appears.
Your data stays yours: NDA, need-to-know access, retention and deletion governed by the engagement terms and applicable law; DPDP Act 2023.
Fees agreed in writing before work starts; six-month term, reviewed with you monthly.
Scope is set in writing: accounts your sales team keeps are outside it, and pricing, orders and schemes stay with sales.

Send us one invoice nobody owns. Email the customer name, city, amount, invoice date and whatever you have from the "To start" list to gg@ggaindia.co.in. Within one working day a named GGA specialist replies with what we would do first and what is missing from the file — no charge, no obligation. For a whole book, ask for a complimentary Receivables Position Review.

A different situation? Foreign company owed money by an Indian business → India Desk · Indian exporter owed by an overseas buyer → Global Receivables Desk

Frequently asked questions

Who should be responsible for collections: sales or accounts?

Neither alone. Sales should own payment on accounts it is still selling to; finance should own the ledger and reconciliation. Invoices with no live order — post-sale, close-out, stopped accounts — need a named owner who works them from submission to cash.

Should salespeople get a collections incentive?

It helps on live accounts if it rewards invoices paid by the due date. An incentive on the month's total rewards fresh invoices and leaves older ones to age. It does not fix invoices with no salesperson attached, such as service, spares and AMC bills.

Will our customers feel pressured once GGA follows up?

GGA works as your receivables desk: it confirms documents, reconciles ledgers and asks payables for a run date. It does not pressure customers, and escalation steps are discussed with you first.

What happens to our records if a salesperson leaves?

The contacts, commitments and reasons GGA gathers sit in a record your company owns, so a move or exit no longer resets the account.

Who decides if a customer's claim is accepted or a balance settled?

You do, in writing. GGA sets out the evidence and a recommendation; nothing is settled, discounted or written down without your written approval.

Sources

This page summarises the position as at 9 November 2026. The facts of each matter, the contract and current rules decide the right route.