Commercial Debt Collection
In Florida.

Another business owes yours money and has stopped paying. Commercial collection is the process of turning that receivable back into cash: a demand that means something, a lawsuit when it has to be filed, and enforcement against the assets of a company that hoped you would write it off.

Recovering unpaid business-to-business invoices across Florida

You extended credit to another business because that is how business is done. You delivered the product or the service, invoiced it, and waited thirty days, then sixty, then ninety. The calls got shorter. The promises got vaguer. Now the account is a line on your aging report and a hole in your cash flow, and the company that owes you is still open, still operating, and apparently betting that you will not do anything about it.

Commercial debt collection, also called business-to-business or B2B collection, is what you do about it.

What commercial collection is

Commercial collection is the recovery of a debt one business owes another: unpaid invoices, a defaulted note, a breached supply or service contract, a lease that stopped being paid, a personal guaranty behind any of them. It is different from consumer collection in the law that applies and in the tools available. The federal and Florida consumer-collection statutes that restrict how a consumer debtor may be contacted generally do not apply to a debt owed by a business, and a business debtor has almost none of the exemptions that protect an individual. A corporation or LLC that owes you has no homestead, no head-of-family wage protection, and no exempt vehicle. If it has assets, the assets can be reached.

The work follows a sequence. A demand from a law firm, which many businesses treat differently from the ones they have been ignoring from you. Then, if the demand does not produce payment or a workable agreement, a lawsuit in the county where the debtor is located or where the contract says disputes are heard. Then a judgment, and then enforcement: garnishing the debtor's bank accounts, levying on its inventory, equipment, and vehicles, intercepting money its own customers owe it, and, where the owner signed a guaranty, pursuing the owner as well.

Why this matters to your receivable

Time is the variable that decides most commercial collections. Businesses that stop paying one creditor are usually not paying several, and the creditor who obtains a judgment and records a lien first is paid first from whatever is there. Under Florida law, a judgment lien on personal property takes its priority from the date the judgment lien certificate is filed with the Department of State, and a lien on real estate from the date a certified copy of the judgment is recorded in the county. Waiting six months to see whether the debtor comes around can mean standing behind three other creditors who did not wait.

Time also runs against you in another way. Florida's statute of limitations gives five years to sue on a written contract and four on an oral one or an open account. Those windows sound generous until an account has sat in a drawer through two changes of your own staff.

The other thing that matters is the contract you already have. If your credit application, invoice terms, or agreement provide for interest, late charges, and attorney's fees, Florida courts will generally enforce them, and the cost of collection shifts to the debtor. If they do not, prejudgment interest still accrues at the statutory rate set quarterly by the state, but fees are usually yours to bear. We will tell you at intake which situation you are in, and how to fix your paperwork for the next customer.

Just suppose

The following is an illustrative example, written to show how the process works. It is not a real client, a real matter, or a promise of any result.

Imagine you own a restaurant-supply distributor in Tampa: smallwares, paper goods, cleaning chemicals, delivered three times a week to kitchens from Ybor City to Westshore. One of your accounts is a group of four restaurants under common ownership. For two years they paid on time. Then a new location opened, and the payments slowed, then stopped. Your deliveries continued because the manager kept saying the check was coming. When you finally cut them off, the balance was $84,000 across four locations, and the owner stopped answering his phone.

You place the account with a collection law firm. The firm's demand letter goes to the operating company and to the owner, who signed a personal guaranty on your credit application. It gets a call from the owner's accountant offering $20,000 to settle, which is declined. Suit is filed in Hillsborough County circuit court on the account and the guaranty; your invoice terms provide for 18 percent interest and attorney's fees, and both are pleaded. The owner does not seriously dispute the debt and a judgment is entered on summary judgment within a few months. A judgment lien certificate is filed the same week. The firm serves writs of garnishment on the two banks your own deposit records show the restaurants use, and a levy is scheduled on the newest location's kitchen equipment. Before the sheriff arrives, the owner's counsel proposes a payment plan secured by a lien on the equipment and a consent judgment that enters automatically if a payment is missed. You accept, because the alternative is a distressed auction that returns less. Fourteen months later the account is paid in full, with interest and fees.

Different facts produce different outcomes. What stayed constant here was pressure applied in the right order: demand, suit, lien, enforcement, each step making the next one unnecessary if the debtor chose to pay.

How commercial collection works in Florida

We start with what you have: the contract or credit application, the invoices, proof of delivery, the payment history, any guaranty, and any correspondence in which the debtor acknowledged the debt. Those documents decide how strong the case is and how quickly it can move. Where the amount is $50,000 or less, suit is filed in county court, which is faster; larger claims go to circuit court. Where the debtor does not respond, a default judgment can be obtained. Where the debtor disputes the invoice, the case proceeds, and a demand for judgment under Florida's offer-of-judgment statute can be used to shift the cost of trial onto a debtor who refuses a reasonable settlement.

After judgment, the enforcement tools are the ones described elsewhere on this site: bank garnishment, levy on business assets, garnishment of the debtor's receivables from its own customers, and proceedings supplementary where assets have been moved to a new entity or an insider. A business that reopens under a new name at the same address with the same equipment is not out of reach; Florida's successor-liability rules and fraudulent-transfer statute exist for exactly that case.

Not every account justifies suit. Some debtors are genuinely insolvent, and a judgment against a shell is worth what it cost to print. Part of the job is telling you that early, so your money goes into the accounts that will pay.

Common questions

The debtor is out of state but owes a Florida business. Can you help?

Often, yes. If the contract was performed in Florida or provides for Florida venue, suit can usually be brought here. If the debtor's assets are elsewhere, a Florida judgment can be domesticated in that state.

Do I need a signed contract?

No. An open account supported by invoices and proof of delivery is enforceable. A signed credit application with interest, fee, and guaranty terms makes the case stronger and shifts the cost of collection to the debtor, which is why we recommend one.

How much do your debt collection services cost?

That depends on the amount, the documentation, and whether suit is required, and we will quote it at intake. Where your terms provide for attorney's fees, the debtor bears them in the judgment.

What industries do you provide debt collection services for?

Distribution and wholesale, transportation and trucking, construction and building supply, equipment sales and leasing, manufacturing, media and advertising, staffing, insurance premiums, and banking and finance, among others. The law is the same; the paperwork differs.

The discipline behind the result

Commercial collection rewards the creditor who moves first and moves correctly. We work each account on a set process, demand to judgment to enforcement, and we report as we go, so you always know where your money is and what the next step will be. Bring us the file. Call (813) 288-1881.