The article considers the problem of receivables growth faced by OOO LUKOIL-TTK, a heating supply and transport subsidiary of LUKOIL. The Russian legislation, which regulates relations in the housing and utilities sector, discourages creation of favorable conditions, under which services consumers would benefit from complying with their obligations. In the conditions of ineffective legal framework heat suppliers have to create their own mechanisms for effective settlement of debts. The author offers an original approach, which implies developing measures aimed at improving debtors' payment discipline rather than enhancing the efficiency of debt recovery. The author highlights the reasons why utility service providers are assigned to the category of problem consumers. Firstly, this sphere accumulates considerable sums of money. Secondly, there are cases when a service provider faces the problem of deliberate delay of payment on the part of executing agencies. In this case, the overall high level of collectability from the population does not mean that the money will be transferred to the account of the heat supply organization. The paper considers important principles that should be a basis of the credit policy of an organization applying the system of incentive rebates. The article describes techniques of calculating discounts in the event of prompt payment. The discounting method is a basis of most of the techniques. The paper identifies the weaknesses of these techniques. The author concludes that a public utility company may use traditional methods of debt collection to reduce accounts receivable, however, applying the methods, which enable to improve consumers' payment discipline is a more progressive approach. It will result in stable cash flows and increased sustainability of the entire industry.
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