Bulk debtor tracing for finance and credit control teams

Triage the aged debtor ledger first

Start from your aged debt report, but do not send it as it stands. Sort accounts owed by individuals into three groups:

• Reachable: still responding or on an arrangement. Do not trace.
• Paused: disputed, under query, or flagged as possibly vulnerable. Resolve or review first; do not trace yet.
• Gone away: verified balance, liable individual identified, evidence the address has failed. These are the candidates for tracing.

Only the third group goes forward, and only accounts that are genuine cases. Never add accounts just to reach the 10-person minimum.

A batch workflow from 10 reports

1. Size the batch. Count the genuine gone-away group. A batch starts at 10 accounts; many teams find a review produces somewhere between 30 and 100.
2. Buy the reports. Use the 10, 30, 50 or 100 quick-buy options or price an exact number.
3. Prepare the file. Download the CSV template from your Locate account and paste one person per row from the ledger export.
4. Check before upload. Remove duplicates and anyone who has paid or made contact since the report was run.
5. Upload and acknowledge. Confirm lawful, proper use, then submit. You can hold back credits for a later batch.
6. Review reports. Work through each Locate Report and record the decision against the account.

Data quality: send less, but send it right

Match quality depends on accurate identity details. Use the customer’s full name as held, the last known address in full, and date of birth where you hold it. Leave out account notes, payment history and anything about other people at the address. Do not upload invoices or supporting documents — the template asks only for what is needed.

Audit and proportionate handling

• Record why each account was selected and when it was traced.
• Limit access to the upload and reports to the people who need them.
• Keep reports only as long as your own retention policy requires.
• Do not reuse trace results for unrelated purposes, such as marketing.

For the data protection background, see is debtor tracing legal in the UK?

Acting on match confidence

Each report gives a confidence view, not a confirmation. Agree a simple internal rule: higher confidence results get a light, neutral verification step before use; lower confidence results are treated as leads and checked against your records; conflicting results are stopped and the input details rechecked. The gone-away accounts playbook covers this in more depth, and the demo Locate Report shows the layout.

What Locate does not do

Locate is trace only. It does not contact customers, collect debts, run credit checks or give legal advice. What you do with a result is a decision for your team.

Questions