As of November 2026, receivable management services are outsourced work on money customers owe a business, from early reminders in the creditor's name through third-party collection and legal recovery. TSI's Accounts Receivable Management (ARM) service covers every stage, takes in about 3.5 million new accounts a month across TSI, and is usually paid on contingency, a fixed fee per account or both.
Results vary by portfolio, including account age, balance and type, and by client program.
- Reminders in your name12,800
- First-party, your name4,150
- Third-party, TSI's name1,920
- Legal, approved by you64
- Collected$1.24M
- Fees$0.19M
- You kept$1.05M
Got a letter or call from TSI about your own account? Go to the Consumer Support Hub or make a payment.
What "receivable management" can mean
Vendors use the same words for different jobs, so pin the scope down first. Most outsourced AR work falls into one of four stages, and you can buy one, several or all of them.
| Stage | Whose name the customer sees | Typical timing | Usually priced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demand communications | Yours | Days past due | Fixed fee per account or per message |
| First-party collections | Yours | Before charge-off | Per hour or FTE, a fixed fee, or contingency |
| Third-party collections | The agency's | After charge-off | Contingency |
| Legal recovery | A law firm's | When a suit makes sense | Contingency, plus court costs |
Accounts that one agency couldn't resolve can go to a secondary placement, where a second agency works them head to head. Software for running your own agency network is a separate purchase: DebtNext, a TSI company, sells that.
When outsourcing beats hiring
Outsourcing tends to pay when one of these is true:
- Your team is behind. Accounts age while they wait, and every month past due lowers what an account is likely to pay.
- Volume swings. Hiring for the peak leaves people idle in the trough, and a partner can add trained agents for a season.
- The rules are heavy. Contact limits, consent, disputes and state licensing take a compliance team to run, and few billing departments have one.
- You can't see the numbers. If you don't know what each stage nets after cost, a partner that reports it account by account gives you a baseline.
It tends not to pay when your accounts are few, recent and easy to reach, and a staff member's reminder calls already resolve most of them.
How outsourced AR is priced
Contingency is the most common model for collections: the agency keeps a share of what it recovers, and the rate moves with account age, balance, volume and legal work. Fixed fees per account suit early reminder programs, where the work is the same for every account. First-party programs that look like a staffed team are often priced by the hour or the FTE.
Compare partners on what you keep after fees, since a lower rate on a weaker agency can net you less. What collection agencies charge lists published fee ranges, and the agency net-back calculator runs the comparison on your own numbers.
TSI sets pricing for each portfolio on contingency, a fixed fee per account or both, once it has seen the accounts' age and balances.
How TSI runs it
Take the file and scrub it
Placed accounts are checked for bankruptcy, death and active military duty before first contact, then scored on credit, contact and payment data to set who gets contacted first and how.
Reach customers where they answer
Text, email, phone and letters, in the order your rules allow, with a pay page and payment plans so customers can settle without a call.
Keep the history with the account
Contact history, disputes and consent move with each account from stage to stage, so a customer who disputed in your name isn't contacted as if they hadn't.
Score every call
Ripple, TSI's real-time compliance and quality monitoring tool, scores every call for quality and compliance, and a quality team outside operations reviews the results.
Report what you kept
Placements, contacts, payments, disputes, complaints and net back by stage and segment, so you can see what each part of the program returns.
Questions to ask any AR partner
- Which stages do you run yourselves, and which do you hand to someone else?
- Whose name does the customer see at each stage, and who holds the license?
- How do you count calls and texts against Regulation F's limits, per account or per debt?
- What happens to disputes, consent and contact history when an account changes stage?
- Can we start with one segment and compare it against what we net today?
The collection services RFP kit has the full question set with a scoring template, and placement to close walks through what happens to an account after you send it.
General information, current as of November 2026. It isn't legal advice. Rules change and differ by state, so check the sources linked here and talk to your own counsel before you act on it.
The company behind the work
Questions buyers ask
What is receivable management?
Receivable management is the work of getting paid on money customers owe you: invoicing and reminders, follow-up on past-due accounts, payment plans, and, when needed, collection and legal recovery. Receivable management services are that work done by an outside partner.
What does an accounts receivable management company do?
It works your past-due accounts for you. Depending on the contract, it sends reminders and makes calls in your name before charge-off, collects charged-off accounts in its own name, refers suits to a law firm network and reports what it recovered.
What's the difference between AR outsourcing and a collection agency?
A collection agency usually takes accounts after charge-off and works them in its own name. AR outsourcing can start earlier, with reminders and calls in your name, and can include collection agency work later. TSI does both.
How much do receivable management services cost?
Collections work is usually paid on contingency, a share of what's recovered. Early reminder programs often carry a fixed fee per account, and staffed first-party programs may be priced per hour. Ask for the rate and the expected net back on your own accounts.
When should a business outsource accounts receivable?
When accounts are aging faster than your team can work them, when volume swings, when compliance takes more than your team can carry, or when you can't measure what each stage returns.
Does outsourcing AR hurt customer relationships?
It can if the partner treats your customers badly, which is why the name on the call and the way calls are checked matter. In first-party work, TSI's agents speak in your name, on your scripts, with every call scored.
Can we outsource one stage or segment at a time?
Yes. Many clients start with one stage or one segment, compare it against what they net today, and expand from there.
Measure one segment first
The Recovery Performance Diagnostic measures what you net on one stage or segment today, flags channel and complaint risk, and sets up a carve-out you can run as a measured pilot.
Got a letter or call from TSI about your own account? Go to the Consumer Support Hub or make a payment.
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