The Dreaded Credit Hold
Occasionally when the sales assistant or order entry person tries to reserve space for one of your accounts, they may run into a roadblock. If the account hasn't been paying their bills, they may be put on "cash in advance" status, or as other newspapers call it "cash with copy". This or other credit problems may put your ad reservation on hold, which is usually discovered when whoever processes your ad reservation form begins entering it into the computer. Once an account is put on credit hold, the computer doesn't allow an ad to run without the approval and release by the credit department. Your sales assistant or the order entry person will inform you of any reservation that is put on credit hold.

In fact, at many newspapers this person will also research the reason for the outstanding balance. They can let you know the amount of the open balance, and even tell you the dates and amounts of unpaid ads. You can then work with the credit department and your account until satisfactory arrangements are made. The credit department will either approve or disapprove of the ad waiting to run. If approved, the ad will be released from credit hold and reserved, where it will continue to be processed in the normal way. The key thing to remember here is that in almost all cases, production cannot work on the ad in any way while the ad is on credit hold. They will put it aside and wait for clearance before taking any further action.