Debt Collections: Show Give me the money!

4. Send an invoice straight away. Or as early as you can if it’s a job that you aren’t collecting for on the day/on delivery. If a business customer is able to put off paying you, they will. It’s rare that an accounts bod will sit down, hands rubbing gleefully together to write you a cheque the minute your invoice hits the mat. Instead, (and take it form me, I used to work with some of them) they’ll loll around for 2/3 of the month, chatting and laughing, and then, on the last day, 21st, accounts day or whatever, they’ll deal process all the payments in a single swoop of the keyboard (actually I’m being unfair, it’s normally system constrained to a certain day a month, but you catch my drift). Make sure your invoice is there as early as possible.
5. Give a follow up call. When you can, after around a week for example, and just say (in your own dulcet tones and technogeek business speaky) – ‘Hey, hope the work was good, and to your satisfaction, my invoice is with you now, did you get it OK? Can I confirm your payment date is XX and I’ll have the payment by XX and don’t forget, you can take advantage of the 14 day discount if you decide to pay before..’ or something similar.
6. If you don’t get paid – ring back as soon as the date has passed by 2 or 3 days. ‘Just checking you managed to process the payment, it might have gone adrift as I’ve not got it… .’ or whatever you feel comfortable with.
7. If you still don’t get paid – ring again, and this time, if your contact is not a senior, strategic part of the company, speak to someone who is, and try and politely get your money. Take their name, put the confirmation of your agreement in writing and send it to them directly.
8. If you still don’t get paid – ring again. Keep chasing the contact you have spoken to, and take it as far up the company as you can (it’s key to remember some people are actually incompetent, rather than broke, taking it higher will help you to weed out the difference). At this point, you may want to offer your client the chance to spread the payment over a couple of months, maybe, to give them the chance to find the cash. It’s really up to you, and can be worthwhile, as half the cash is better than none of the cash. Again, put this agreement in writing.
9. If you have agreed terms of payment, make sure you check the client is adhering to them. Collect the money each month/week, be polite and professional and leave a good impression even if you aren’t going to be working with the client again – remember, networking is the name of the game, at every opportunity.
10. Learn from your mistakes. Make sure you have some money in the bank, whenever you can, as a fallback position, and find out as much as possible about any client you are going to be working for, if you are likely to be out of pocket. In an ideal world, you’d be credit checking every customer you came across, to make sure you never got hit. However, when carrying out I.T. help and support, you are often dealing with individuals, small businesses such as yourself, and maybe some new businesses too. The important thing to do is to find out as much as you can, relevant to the situation (e.g. the guy on the park bench probably can’t afford a new laptop, but if he wants one, it’s COD all the way), and when you get hit, which we all do at some time, do as much as you can about it, and learn for next time!