On 4 May 2021 the Debt Respite Scheme (Breathing Space) comes into force. This important legislation means individuals can have “breathing space” from their creditors. This scheme provides citizens with new and important procedural protection when it comes to their debts, but equally it may be challenging for landlords and local councils to implement. So here is our guide on the best practices for navigating breathing space.

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a remote working revolution. In fact in the UK three-quarters of employees now favour more flexible work. But how can you harness the benefits of working remotely? Here are some top tips to make sure you and your legal colleagues are operating efficiently.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is technology which empowers businesses to cut their operating costs and increase profits by managing interactions with their customers and potential customers. Advanced CRM software provides its users with better knowledge of their customers, better segmentation, speedier communication and improved data privacy. It’s a vital tool for any organisation, so with that in mind here are our top 5 strategies to optimise your CRM.

Debtor Days are of paramount importance to the success of any company, and they’re a highly effective way to measure the health of your enterprise. Debtor days is a commonly-used term to measure how long your customers are taking to pay you on average. But to understand how you can reduce debtor days, we must first understand them in more detail.

With a large majority of business owners, local councils and government agencies experiencing budgetary and cash flow challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more important than ever that they can successfully recover their debts. So here are Lateral’s top 5 debt recovery activities.

Current debt collection processes and engagement strategies are becoming outdated. Today a single view of citizen debt empowers councils to take collections data from council tax, business rates, sundry debts, parking fines, and housing benefits systems and connect them in a single location, or ‘view’. This innovative approach to collections has many tangible benefits.

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly shifting and every law firm is at the risk of an attack. Protecting sensitive data pertaining to personal information, intellectual property and governmental and industry information systems from theft and damage is an important and challenging task. In fact cyber attacks cost the UK economy over £10 billion per year. With many law firms looking to implement cost effective yet robust security controls, here are Lateral Technology’s top 5 cybersecurity tips for law firms.

API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is an integral part of software development. If your organisation is considering investing in a new software solution, then it’s more than likely that the term API has been thrown around. An API is best understood as a translator between software programs. It is the means by which one software program can communicate with another, and reap benefits, with neither program needing to perform the actions of the other.

Building a Single View of Debt (also known as a 360 degree view) is one of the most innovative and important ways for organisations to improve their collections processes. Simply defined, a single customer view (SCV) is an aggregated, consistent and holistic representation of all the data known by an organisation about its debtors. Local authorities, for example, can aggregate all data relating to rent arrears, housing benefit, council tax overpayments, parking fines, and other sundry debts. With an accurate and holistic single customer view and real-time, accurate insights into debt, organisations can reduce the duplication of debt collection activity and increase revenue. But before building a single view of debt, what five questions do you need to ask?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) form a vital part of the information required to determine and explain how a law firm can manage its organisational health. And whether you love them or hate them, they’re the backbone of your legal business. KPIs for every business are different, but here are the top 5 most important KPIs your law firm should be tracking when you’re wanting to know the true health and performance of your operations.

Strong credit control and debt collection procedures are essential to successful cash flow management within an organisation. But during challenging economic times, how do you know when the time is right to switch to debt collection software?

As local authorities endeavour to innovative their digital services and improve productivity, cybersecurity has shifted to the top of their agenda. Cyber incidents can be costly, disruptive and lead to a loss of data. And local authorities in the UK face an average of 19.5 million cyberattacks a year. So here are our top five tips to help local authorities protect themselves.

The recovery of debt can be a very time consuming and labour-intensive task. And it has become even more challenging in recent times. Having an effective credit management system will be the means by which your company or organisation can successfully negotiate the challenges of COVID-19. So here we outline our top 5 credit management tips!

Whether you’re a small law firm or a large local authority or governmental organisation, insight into the management of your operations should sit among the top priorities of your agenda. Case management system software is a collection of digital tools that allows organisations to handle case management. And in order to meet the goals efficiently, local governments and law firms need a case management reporting system to help them implement their strategies. A good reporting system is the foundation for any successful strategy execution. And here we outline the top 5 benefits of optimised reporting and analytics in case management software.

Single Customer View of Debtors is the aggregation, in a single system, of all the information related to debtor. When it comes to local council and local authority debt recovery and debt collection, there is, quite simply, no better source of information than a Single Customer View. Here we outline how a Single Customer View of Debtors can power councils and local authorities to improve their collection rates.

Remote working is the future of the legal profession, and what we should be preparing for. Here Lateral provide their top five tips for law firms to both embrace and better manage their remote workforce.

Cloud-based parking enforcement systems have the ability to unite parking operations teams with their back-end databases and their officers on the street. It’s an impressively digital approach to parking enforcement brimming with many benefits. Here are our top five.

In recent years AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning have transformed countless digital processes, making business more efficient and having a direct impact on profit margins. But arguably their greatest impact can be felt in the world of credit control. Here we offer up a guide of how to harness the immense power of AI and Machine Learning to enact effective credit control processes.

Time Tracking is an important procedure in the daily life of lawyers and solicitors. It holds fee earners accountable and eliminates wasteful procedures. But time tracking is also one of the biggest administrative challenges that lawyers can face, and many lawyers fill in timesheets ineffectively, reconstructing their time from calendars and emails. Here we outline the top 5 ways lawyers can track their time digitally with automated software, relieving them from remembering to press ‘start’ and ‘stop’ on their earnings!

All business owners know that good cash flow is vital to their success. The impact of late payments can be severe, sometimes resulting in insolvency. The process of Credit Control is about businesses only giving credit to customers who are able to pay. It also encompasses the enforcement process; making sure they pay on time. With a recent study illustrating that SMEs in the UK are owed £14.2 billion in late payments, our 5 best practice credit control tips are a must read: