Getting Paid On The Job

A popular trend in the business world is going paperless, as a part of ‘going green’, and many Techs feel more comfortable with using paperless billing instead of writing paper invoices on the spot anyway. There are many ways to take payment on the spot without using cash or checks, by means of card readers such as the one offered by PayPal, or web services and apps, such as FreshBooks.

You may not have issues with customers not paying your invoices that you send when you return to the office, if you send invoices by email, but there seems to be a growing problem with mailed or emailed invoices being ignored and not paid by the customer, and as a result, many are changing their payment policy to one of being paid on the job right after the work is done. Why is it better to be paid on the spot?

Better Chance of Getting Paid

Let’s take a look at the psychological angle. This holds true for practically all service industry sectors, with some exceptions of course, such as perhaps the high end food service industry. Usually, 90% of the time, when your service has been performed and they’re impressed with your work and glad to have the issues resolved, the bill is a smaller consideration.

The priority was getting the issue resolved, and the focus is on how great it is that it’s fixed. Later, as they get back to using their system, the tendency is to forget how much of a problem it was causing them, and the bill may start to seem larger and the inclination to pay it may have drained somewhat. If you request payment right after the work is finished, many times, you’ll have a lower non-payment rate than if you had billed them with a paper invoice to be paid at their leisure.

Efficiency

It’s more efficient to take care of payment right away, rather than sending an invoice later. Many times we have so much going on all day that if we wait until we return to the office to send off invoices, we might forget what we need to invoice, unless we have detailed notes taken throughout the day.

Notes can get lost, and data can be lost through power loss, which I’ve experienced more than once, so perhaps it would streamline your workflow further to be able to take payment on the spot. You also don’t have to set aside a chunk of time to sit down and invoice customers at the end of the day, or every time you return to the office after a job, which is how some technician services I’ve known do their invoicing.

Professional Aspect

If a contractor pulled out a mobile card reader on his mobile device right after the job was done, I know I would be impressed. In my local community I haven’t seen anyone using them yet, even though they would save extra paperwork, time, and mailing costs. Since many card transactions have a fee by the payment processing service anyway, it wouldn’t change much as far as that is concerned.

If you performed the job well and then pull out a gadget to take payment on the spot, it’s a further impression on them that you’re full service, and you’re on top of the latest payment technology, which is an added bonus to many clients, and as a result you could get a few more referrals.

There seems to be a growing trend in non-paying customers in the service industry, so implementing instant payment systems into your workflow could save you a lot of headaches down the road, and it can also benefit your business in the long run. If you have tips on getting paid on the job, drop a comment below, we would love to hear them!