The fax machine doesn’t play the same role as it did in the past for A/R, but by no means has it become obsolete.
A study by the Credit Management Association recently polled Collections pros and asked, “Is your department still sending and receiving faxes?” Here’s a breakdown of how firms responded:
- Yes, but usage has decreased (48%)
- Yes, faxes are still vital (34%)
- Very rarely do we send a fax (11%), and
- We don’t send them, but we receive them (5%), and
- Not at all (1%).
There’s still a large number of Collections departments who use faxes to communicate with customers, but the usage is steadily decreasing — and will continue to do so moving forward. So A/R pros will probably want to start relying more heavily on emails and scanning to interact with customers.