That was close, nearly had to appoint a debt collector.

[ProDave]

For only the second time since being self employed (14 years now) I had a non payer, a landlord getting a house ready for rent had not paid for my work.

At the beginning of September I sent the recorded delivery final remainder giving them until the end of September to pay or I would hand the debt to a debt collecting agency.

September 30th, no payment. So I sent a final email saying I would be contacting the debt collector on Monday 3rd October and giving them until Monday morning to pay.

Monday morning no payment, I fired of an enquiry to a local debt collector asking if they would take this case on.  Monday Evening they paid the bill so this time the debt collectors not appointed.  Talk about stretching their luck.

That's one for the black list won't do any more work for them.

But once again the recorded delivery letter and follow up threatening them with the debt collector did the trick.

 

 

[Evans Electric]

I'm sure you're right ,  Ah  This bloke means business , hang it out another day then pay him . 

I meet quite a few SE sparks who stand for the three card trick with some of these bad payers. 

My mate Bob the Breakdown was too easy going , he'd have quite a few customers who hadn't paid him ....he waited till they phoned again with another breakdown , costing them a fortune,  and said He'd be there if they had a cheque waiting.   Often 3 months down the line.   He shouldn't have had to do that. 

We discussed it on here , we are electricians not businessmen .  

Talking to young SE sparks in the wholesalers ,  He runs up a bill there over about 2 weeks then pays them up to date , which is fine but I was advising him to make use of his 30 day account .  I didn't mention I had a 60 day account. .  Use their money not yours , I had to point out that what he spends in January is billed at the end of the month & you pay at the end of February.  

He didn't like the idea and he was having the usual problems getting paid himself. 

 

[M107]

I've just sent a recorded delivery letter to a school head teacher for £3k payment  that is now 16 days past their own 30 day payment policy............cheeky twats sent me a cheque at day 38 (after I chased for a week) I dropped it in the bank only for it to be returned two days later because they hadn't written the monetary amounts as the same.

So the incorrect cheque has gone with the recorded delivery "Pay the courgette up" letter & should have dropped in to the head teachers lap today.

 

[Andy™]

avoided one today... mondial lighting... she didnt sound too happy when told they are known to be bad payers...

 

[ProDave]

I did some work for a care home, twice, but when I found out their terms are "at the end of month 1, we send the bill to head office. At the end of month 2, head office send the bill to accounts. at the end of month 3, if you are luck, accounts pay the bill."  I declined to do any more work for them.

Most private customers are fine, this is only the second private customer who I have had trouble getting paid by.
 

 

[Badger]

avoided one today... mondial lighting... she didnt sound too happy when told they are known to be bad payers...

Ive had dealings with mondial before 

 

[kerching]

I,had one....strung it out for weeks. Then they were desperate for me as it was a bit ',specialised'.

so I kindly told them that I would need the money that they owed in cash so I could get it in the bank that day.

they gave me the cash  

i went and put it in the Bank then went on to my next job about 100 miles away!

they rang and asked where I was as I had not gone back.

i explained that they had caused me problems by not paying as promised and that I would be there in 5 weeks time....the same as the time they had messed me about for. Never went back, they went bust a couple of months later

Everybody gets one chance if they are lucky

 

[Andy™]

Ive had dealings with mondial before 

because of the threads on here, i havent had any issues...

 

[Apache]

I don't know if this is helpful, but I will tell you how we deal with bills.
We are a small business with 9 employees.

Bills arrive and go in a folder. Once a month they are gone through by part time book-keeper and either cheques are written on they go in a pile for BACS payments (somewhere around the 20th)

Cheques are then sent end of the month and BACS set up at a similar time (takes 5 days).

If your bill arrives on the 21st it will be 45 days min before you are getting paid. It needs the book keeper and a director to sit down and go through them. We can't do this for every bill that arrives. It's not possible to deal with each one as an individual as we get a lot of different bills each month. They take an afternoon to go through.

Occasionally bigger bills have to wait until there are funds in the account (end of month other bills and wages all go out)

Realistically we will wait a lot longer than that for almost all large animal accounts to pay.

 

[Lurch]

I use Quickfile (have done for several years now). Makes it much easier to go through everything and find out who owes who what. Also sends out reminders automatically and you can set customers on different terms if required. My standard terms are all immediate payment. I've had quite a few customers pay instantly after the first email reminder is sent after 7 days with an apology via email. Absolutely no intervention from me, and if anyone gets upset with the reminders I just tell them it was sent out automatically and they seem to be OK with that, but still pay quickly anyway so win/win.

 

[rapparee]

Our accounts department operate on a different planet with no rhyme nor reason.

Sometimes they pay up before the goods are actually dispatched to us other times they still won't pay up months later. Usually after i sign off a goods recieved notification i think no more of it. But we had a small time precision engineer who was doing work for us, he was working for about 6/7 months when he mentioned he wasn't getting paid, we went up to the accounts department and told them to pay up. They gave some guff about end of the month, we went and got the senior facilities manager to lend some clout to our case. The cheque was in the post 30 mins later.

Another time we wanted to order some machine parts from england for a machine. The accounts department took it upon themselves to pay up front whenever the order was placed, we waited over six weeks on that delivery...

I think at times the accounts department forgets that it is there to serve the company not the other way about.

 

[Blue Duck]

The strange world that I work in operates like it's 1975 except that you probably had wholesalers in 1975.

If I need materials for an urgent job, a repair needs doing and the part isn't on the van then I need to pay for it out of my own money, I then submit this to the accountant who signs it off the passes it to the manager who signs it off and then has to get two trustees signatures approving the payment, the average wait is about 6 weeks!

I once paid for £900 worth of lighting on my credit card as they had no way to pay for it! Got that back after about 2 weeks.

Then there is the subbies, they can sometimes wait up to a year after the job is completed for the snails at the council to release the funds and then get paid by us.

Total madness that could only exist in this world.

 

[Andy™]

if i was employed, there would be no way i would be buying materials for work then reclaiming it later. maybe for the odd one-off item, but for general stuff they would be getting told to sort it themselves

 

[Lurch]

If I need materials for an urgent job, a repair needs doing and the part isn't on the van then I need to pay for it out of my own money, I then submit this to the accountant who signs it off the passes it to the manager who signs it off and then has to get two trustees signatures approving the payment

You are employed by a company? There is no way would I be doing this, and I wouldn't expect anyone employed to be doing this for things in the order of hundreds of pounds, maybe the odd switch/socket to get a job done would be appreciated but not expected.

the average wait is about 6 weeks!

Even more no!

 

[Blue Duck]

I'm not employed by a company as such.

Gave up buying any large items a long time ago, it's all done on the internet which makes the jobs turn around very slowly but thats not my problem anymore!

Still get odd things but absolutely no big ticket items!

It sucks, I know, currently seeking alternative employment as its all going down the pan anyway.

just.... looking on the bright side.

 

[Spanner or Hammer]

I've started using a software called "KashFlow", it allows me to either email or print off invoices, and has the facility that Lurch mentioned where it sends out auto "pay-up" emails.

As much as I try to cover all bases by accepting card payments with a mobile terminal, bank transfers and of course cold hard cash... I still end up chasing people for payments, usually because the customer has agreed to pay by bank transfer and it then becomes non urgent.

I don't like accepting cheques because it takes about an hour to do a round trip to the bank. 10 minutes to get there, 30 minutes in a queue and 10 minutes to get back.

 

[Spanner or Hammer]

Small world... hope they're tuned in, might get a discount for unknowingly promoting them :Salute

 

[Tony S]

For a while I worked in engineering procurement for a multinational. Our purchasing terms were 60 days payable on the last day of the month. Great for our accountants, suppliers could be waiting 90 days. Great until I phoned LSE for urgent spares, pay up or you’re getting sweet **** all. We paid in full.

Later I did the dirty on LSE by finding out who their suppliers were. We dealt with MCS direct after that.

Two great electrical engineering companies gone to the wall.