Debt collection software for Australian agencies and creditors

What must a collections platform check before it sends a single message?

Before any call, email or SMS goes out, a collections system should confirm that the contact is necessary, within the frequency limit, within permitted hours, through an appropriate channel, and not blocked by a hardship request, a dispute or a representative. Most conduct problems in collections are not one bad message. They are a sequence of individually reasonable messages that add up to harassment.

A pre send check, in order:

1. Is the debt disputed, under a hardship request or subject to a payment arrangement that is being kept?
2. Has the debtor asked you to deal with a representative, such as a financial counsellor or lawyer?
3. How many contacts have been made this week and this month, across every channel?
4. Is it within permitted hours in the debtor’s time zone?
5. Is the channel private? A shared email address, a landline or a social media account others can see is a risk.
6. Has the debtor asked not to be contacted by this channel or at work?
7. Is the message an approved template, accurate about the amount and the consequences?

Only if all seven pass should the message send. Everything else waits for a person.

What do the ACCC and ASIC guideline’s contact limits mean in practice?

The ACCC and ASIC recommend no more than 3 contacts per week, or 10 per month at most, counting contact actually made rather than attempts, and only when necessary. The guideline was last revised in April 2021 and reflects how both regulators apply the Australian Consumer Law and the ASIC Act. ASIC covers debts arising from financial services such as credit; the ACCC covers other goods and services.

The ACCC’s summary of recommended contact times:

Contact type	Weekdays	Weekends	National public holidays
Telephone	7:30 am to 9 pm	9 am to 9 pm	No contact recommended
Face to face	9 am to 9 pm	9 am to 9 pm	No contact recommended
Workplace	Debtor’s normal working hours if known, otherwise 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays

Three details change how software must count:

• Contact is interpreted widely. It includes letters, emails, texts, social media, instant chat and app messages, plus calls answered or ended, and voicemails. The guideline’s own example: a voicemail, an email and a text is three contacts.
• Attempts matter too. An automated dialler that puts a number back in the queue shortly after each unanswered call can amount to undue harassment.
• Records. The guideline says to keep records of all communications and attempted contacts.

So the contact counter must be shared across every channel and every system that can reach the debtor, including the dialler, the email platform and the SMS gateway. That is the single most important design decision in a collections build.

The regulators do enforce. The ACCC’s debt page lists 2026 actions, including infringement notices and a court enforceable undertaking against one collector in August, and court proceedings in June over more than 320,000 allegedly misleading debt notices.

Who needs a licence to collect?

Collectors who act for others are licensed at state level, and the rules differ by state. Queensland, for example, licenses debt collectors and process servers, also known as commercial agents, and sets rules on appointment, place of business, trust accounts, the claim fund and inspections.

For software, licensing shows up as:

• Recording which licensed entity and which licensed individual handled each account.
• Trust account handling for money collected on behalf of creditors, kept separate from operating funds.
• Rules that vary by the debtor’s state where the law requires.

Ask your lawyer which licences apply in each state you collect in. A creditor collecting its own debts is often treated differently from an agency.

How should hardship and vulnerability flow through the system?

Hardship and vulnerability must interrupt the collection process, not run beside it. For credit debts, Moneysmart says that when a customer asks for help, the lender must consider them for hardship assistance, and it counted more than 280,000 hardship notices across Australia in 2024/25. The guideline also warns against taking unfair advantage of any vulnerability, disability or similar circumstance.

A sound workflow:

1. Detect hardship in any channel: a phone note, an email, a reply to an SMS, a portal form.
2. Pause automated contact on that account immediately.
3. Route to a trained person, with the full history visible.
4. Track information requested, decisions and timeframes.
5. Record any arrangement and feed it correctly to credit reporting where the creditor reports. The OAIC notes that financial hardship information is strictly regulated under the Privacy Act.
6. Watch for complaints that may go to AFCA, and record them against the account.

Detection is where AI can help, by flagging messages that mention illness, job loss, family violence or financial counselling for a person to review.

Which SMS and email rules apply to collections?

The ACCC and ASIC guideline governs how often and how you contact debtors, and the ACMA’s rules govern how messages are sent. Two ACMA rules matter most:

• SMS Sender ID Register. From 1 July 2026, texts sent with an organisation’s name as the sender ID need that branded sender ID registered. Collections messages sent under a brand name must comply.
• Spam Act. The ACMA’s consent, identification and unsubscribe rules apply to marketing messages. Keep collection messages free of promotional content, and ask your lawyer whether any message type you send could count as commercial.

Beyond the law, privacy matters in the channel itself. Don’t put debt details in the preview text of an SMS or email subject that someone else might see.

How do self service payment arrangements work?

A self service portal lets the debtor see the balance, propose an arrangement within your rules, pay and get confirmation without a phone call. Many people prefer it, especially those embarrassed to talk about debt.

What a good portal offers:

• A secure link with verification, never the full account details in a message.
• The debt explained clearly, with original creditor, amount and any fees.
• Arrangement options within limits you set, with an option to request something different.
• Payment by card, PayTo or direct debit, and a schedule the debtor can see.
• An easy route to say “I’m in hardship” or “I dispute this”, which pauses collection.

Our customer portal guide covers design and security choices.

Where does AI fit in collections, and what must stay human?

AI is useful for triage, drafting within approved templates and summarising account history; it should not decide who to pursue, set arrangements or handle vulnerable people unsupervised. Collections is a setting where tone matters legally: a message that overstates consequences can mislead, and one that pressures can coerce.

Reasonable uses:

• Classifying inbound replies (promise to pay, dispute, hardship, wrong person) for routing.
• Drafting a personalised message from an approved template, checked against rules before send.
• Summarising a long account history for the agent picking it up.

Keep a log of what the AI suggested and what was sent. Our Privacy Act and AI guide covers the data side.

What do typical builds cost?

These are indicative AUD market ranges, ex GST, not quotes. Expeed publishes $15,000 to $40,000 for simple internal tools and $40,000 to $150,000 for mid complexity systems.

Build	Includes	Indicative range
Contact rules engine with logged communications	Shared counter across channels, hours by time zone, holds, templates, full log	$40,000 to $100,000
Self service payment arrangement portal	Verification, arrangements within rules, payments, hardship and dispute routes	$25,000 to $60,000

The main cost driver is the number of systems that can contact a debtor. One gateway for all outbound messages is cheaper and safer than adding checks to each tool. See our workflow automation cost guide for how these projects are priced.

How AWLabs approaches collections builds

We start with a Development Consult to hear how your book is worked today. If a build is worth doing, a paid Discovery Audit maps every channel that reaches debtors and your hardship process, then you receive a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options: The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build, with updates every Tuesday and Friday, Sydney time.

AWLabs has not yet delivered a collections project, and we hold no credit licence. This page is general information, not legal advice. See our workflow automation service and wider finance and fintech work.