Best credit control options for UK B2B companies

A UK B2B company choosing credit control is choosing who chases overdue invoices, who answers customer payment questions, and who applies the cash. The options UK buyers actually compare are credit control software the team operates, a credit control service that staffs the chasing, and an AI operations partner. Rex is the third kind: its AI agents run collections, cash application, customer portal uploads, and payment reconciliation inside the systems you already use, and Rex finance experts oversee them and follow your procedures.

This is not a ranking. Notes below use only what each provider says on its own public site. They leave out performance claims and prices. In the UK, credit control means the chasing, the queries, and the debtor days. Credit limits and bureau scores are a different purchase, covered in best credit management software.

Credit control options at a glance

Sources are linked in each section. Rex: rex.inc.

How to choose

Ask who does the work on an ordinary overdue invoice, and who answers when the customer writes back. That splits the shortlist faster than a feature list.

• Who chases? Software puts the next action on a list or a schedule for your credit controller. A credit control service employs the person who makes the call or sends the chase. Rex's AI agents send the follow-up, read the reply, and chase a promise that slips. Rex finance experts oversee that work.
• Who answers payment questions? A shared inbox only helps if someone, or something, replies with the invoice, the balance, and the remittance in view. See the inbox section below.
• Who applies the cash? Debtor days stay wrong if receipts sit unapplied and the team chases money that has arrived. Cash application belongs in the same decision as collections.
• Which systems stay? A UK book often already runs on an ERP, a shared mailbox, and customer portals. The useful option works across those, rather than asking you to move the ledger.
• What do you still own? Credit policy, write-offs, payment plans, and sensitive customers should stay with your team whichever option you pick.
• What are you buying? Software you operate, a services contract, or a managed AI operation. Those are different operating models, even when the brochures use the same words.

The collections page is the chasing work. The cash application page is the matching work.

Software the credit control team operates

These products help a credit control team that will still run the process. They suit a company that wants its own people in the queue, with better schedules, worklists, or a single workspace.

Chaser

Best for: a team that wants chasing schedules on top of its accounting system.

Chaser publishes credit control and accounts receivable software. It connects to accounting systems, sends payment reminders on schedules the team sets (including email and SMS), keeps a record of calls, emails, and payments, and stops reminders once a payment has synced. Customers can pay from a portal link. It suits a credit control team whose main gap is consistent chasing, and that will still handle the replies.

Source: chaserhq.com/credit-control-accounts-receivables-software.

Kolleno

Best for: a team that wants collections and cash application in software its own people run.

Kolleno publishes an accounts receivable platform covering collections, payments, cash application, disputes, and credit risk. Its collections pages describe one workspace for invoice data, customer communications, and payment history, with automated reminders and follow-ups. It also publishes collections inbox management, and cash application that matches payments, including ones with a weak reference, and posts matches back to the ERP. Public integrations include NetSuite, Sage, SAP, Xero, and QuickBooks. It suits a team that wants those jobs in one product and will operate it.

Source: kolleno.com/collections-automation, kolleno.com/faqs, and the collections inbox line on kolleno.com/pricing.

Sidetrade

Best for: an enterprise that will adopt a receivables platform and keep collectors on the high-impact accounts.

Sidetrade publishes order-to-cash software. Augmented Collection unifies invoice, customer, and payment data, scores accounts, recommends a next action, runs routine dunning within the customer's rules, and routes cases that need judgment to a collector. Credit Risk Expert covers credit assessment and exposure on the same platform, and a separate cash application app covers payment matching. It describes bi-directional integration with ERPs. It suits a larger credit control team that wants the software to prioritize the book and will still work the accounts that matter.

Source: sidetrade.com Augmented Collection.

Onguard

Best for: a credit control team that wants workflow software beside the ERP.

Onguard publishes credit management software for credit and finance teams. CreditManager automates reminders and collections workflows from the customer's own rules, segments customers, and includes a dispute module so a complaint does not sit in the way of payment. The company says the software works alongside ERP systems such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics, and that it does not replace the ERP. It suits collectors who want a daily worklist and consistent dunning across entities, and who will still work the accounts.

Source: onguard.com/solutions/credit-management and onguard.com.

Esker

Best for: a large organization that wants credit control inside an order-to-cash suite.

Esker Collections Management lets a team configure its own collection strategies, automate payment reminders and statements, and work a prioritized call list. Esker also publishes customer inquiry management that classifies and routes requests, and it connects collections with credit, invoice delivery, cash application, and deductions in one suite. It says the platform connects to ERPs including SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics. It suits a company buying a suite, not a chasing tool on its own. The customer's team still implements and runs it. See Esker alternatives.

Source: esker.com/solutions/collections-management and esker.com/solutions/order-to-cash.

Reminder-only chasing, without the query and cash work, is a narrower cut of the same market. See best dunning software and B2B collections software.

Services that do the chasing

A credit control service, or an accounts receivable outsourcing firm, puts its own specialists on an agreed slice of the book. You keep policy and the decisions you reserve. You manage the relationship. This is the right conversation when you specifically want people employed by a provider to make the calls and apply the cash.

The named comparison of that model with an AI operations partner, including Genpact, WNS, QX Global Group, and ARDEM, is accounts receivable outsourcing vs an AI operations partner. Four UK-facing services buyers meet on a credit control shortlist:

Chaser Care

Best for: a company that wants a dedicated specialist on the chasing, using Chaser.

Chaser Care combines Chaser's receivables software with a dedicated accounts receivable specialist. Chaser says that specialist manages invoice chasing, initial disputes and queries, reconciliation, and customer communications, and that the service is a way to cover receivables without hiring. Chaser's help center lists collections services and credit checking as UK-only features, separate from the software trial. It suits a business that wants a named person running credit control, with the software included.

Source: chaserhq.com/features/chaser-care-service and Chaser's trial feature list.

QX Global Group

Best for: a company that wants UK credit control staffed inside its own finance systems.

QX Global Group publishes outsourced credit control in the UK. The published work includes invoicing checks, chasing by telephone and email, follow-up on promised payments, cash allocation from bank receipts, aged debtor reporting, and liaison where an account may need legal action. It says the work runs in the finance systems the client already uses. It suits a business that wants a services firm to staff that cycle.

Source: qxglobalgroup.com outsourced credit control.

Hilton-Baird

Best for: a company that wants an agency to make the credit control calls.

Hilton-Baird Collection Services publishes a telephone-led, confidential credit control service. It describes pre-due calls or emails to confirm invoices and expected dates, chasing calls, emails, and letters, follow-up when a promised date lapses, and escalation of queries and disputes to a nominated contact at the client. Reporting and a dedicated credit controller are part of the service. It suits a company that wants those calls made by an agency, and that will still decide the disputes.

Source: hiltonbairdcollections.co.uk outsourced credit control.

Credit Management Group UK

Best for: a UK company that wants a firm to act as its credit control department.

Credit Management Group UK (CMG UK) publishes commercial credit management, including outsourced collections it describes as a virtual credit control department, and consultancy on the order-to-cash process aimed at cash flow and debtor days. It says it is a long-term member of the CICM. It suits a company that wants that department provided for it.

Source: cmgroupuk.com.

Other firms sell the same kind of service. The pattern is a contracted team of specialists. If that is the model you want, use the outsourcing comparison. If you want the routine work done by AI agents, with finance experts overseeing them, that is the next section.

A shared accounts receivable inbox

Customer payment questions rarely arrive as a clean worklist. They arrive in a shared mailbox: copy invoices, "have you received this payment", short pays, portal rejections, and disputes. Software or a service can hold that inbox. Something still has to answer it.

Email the team already shares. Outlook or Gmail can host an accounts receivable address. It is flexible and already paid for. Coverage depends on who is in that day, and the reply is only as good as the person who opens the ledger beside it.

A shared inbox product. Front publishes shared inboxes for finance teams, including accounts receivable, with assignment, routing rules, and internal comments. Its own guide for finance teams is about making sure a person owns each message. The replies stay with your team.

An inbox inside AR software. Kolleno publishes collections inbox management as part of its platform, so chasing and customer mail sit with the invoices. Esker publishes customer inquiry management that classifies and routes requests, and it describes a self-service option alongside that routing. In both cases you are buying software your team operates, and the inbox is one module.

An agent on the inbox. Paraglide publishes a billing support agent that works in the finance inbox, replies to invoice questions, and captures promise-to-pay dates and remittances. It suits a team evaluating an agent for those replies.

A managed inbox. Rex's AI agents and finance experts run the shared AR inbox on top of the existing ERP. They classify remittances, status questions, disputes, and portal issues, draft and send replies with account context, and route exceptions that need a person. The detail is on the AR inbox page. Rex does not replace the inbox platform you already have. It works across your email and ERP.

Source for Front: Front's guide for finance teams. Source for Paraglide: paraglide.ai billing support agent.

Where Rex fits

Rex is an AI operations partner for order-to-cash, based in San Francisco and London. Its AI agents and finance experts run the work together.

The agents do the routine volume a busy credit control team runs out of time for. They follow up on open invoices, read replies, answer routine payment questions, apply cash, upload invoices to customer portals, and reconcile payments. They work inside the ERP, email, and portals the customer already uses. Rex works across ERPs including Oracle NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Workday, and Oracle Fusion, and it supports 130+ customer portals. There is no migration onto a new ledger.

Rex finance experts oversee that work. They follow each customer's procedures and approval rules. A payment plan, a write-off, a legal hold, or a sensitive customer conversation goes to the customer's credit control team with the context attached. Policy stays with the customer. Rex does not replace that team.

That is a different operating model from the software above, and a different model from a credit control agency or an outsourcing firm. You are not implementing a platform for your controllers to drive, and you are not contracting another firm's collectors as the way the book gets worked. Most teams go live in under two weeks. There is no self-serve signup and no free trial.

Contact for pricing. Pricing is scoped to the processes and volume Rex takes on.

Use Rex when the constraint is coverage: too many overdue invoices, too many customer queries, and cash application that falls behind, across systems you intend to keep. Use Chaser, Kolleno, Sidetrade, Onguard, or Esker when your credit control team wants software it will operate. Use Chaser Care, QX Global Group, Hilton-Baird, Credit Management Group UK, or another accounts receivable outsourcing firm when you want a provider's specialists to staff the work. The last of those is set out in accounts receivable outsourcing vs an AI operations partner.

What to ask before you buy

1. On an ordinary overdue invoice, who sends the chase: my credit controller, your specialist, or an agent?
2. When a customer asks whether a payment was received, who answers, and from which systems?
3. Who applies the cash, and how quickly does that stop a chase on money that has arrived?
4. Does the work run in our ERP, our shared mailbox, and our customer portals?
5. Which decisions can never go out without our approval?
6. After go-live, what do we still manage: a platform, a services team, or the exceptions?

The same questions apply to a software demo and to a services proposal. A tool that organizes the aged debt report still leaves the chasing with your team. A service that staffs the calls is a contract you manage. An AI operations partner should be able to show the follow-up, the reply, and the cash application, with a finance expert accountable for the procedures you set.