If customers delay payment

One of the minor annoyances that studios most often receive from clients is late payment of the bill. Sometimes clients have “no money in the account,” sometimes “the accountant forgot to pay,” sometimes “paper is lost.” Sometimes it happens that "we wanted to clarify something with your accountant, but did not know how to contact him." Some specially gifted accountants send money "with VAT" to a legal entity working on a "simplified payment".

There are several "life hacks" that really reduce the number of problems with bills and payment. They are aimed, for the most part, to ensure that your account is not lost, and that the client’s accounting department has no opportunity for excuses.

The account must be made visible

• We use paper of a different color, with a bright colored stripe along the edge.
• To prevent the account from being “lost” in the stack, you can print it on a non-standard paper format — a little wider than A4. Then it will simply be inconvenient to stack up, and the accountant will want to quickly deal with this non-standard, "eye piercing" account.

We remove extra opportunities for excuses

• If you are working on a "simplified", in bold, in a frame, write it for specially gifted accountants. Yes, the dash or the inscription "without VAT" in the plate is not enough. One of our clients, whose accounting department is larger than our studio was then, managed to send all payments with VAT.
• Directly on the invoice write a phone number by which you can contact your accountant or you and clarify something. Better - and give a cell too.

Keep in shape

• On the account you can put a phrase like "According to the terms of the contract, payment on this account must be made until August 28, 2008". And to make this phrase catch the eye.
• After the invoice has been sent, you can call the customer’s accountancy office and find out if they have received the invoice. If not received - call the manager and ask the same thing. It is funny to hear different answers to this question. In order not to drive the customer manager into the corner (they bite at it), you can say something like, “Probably, you gave them another account, but thought it was ours. Ours is such and such. By the way, you have to pay for it until such and such a date. ”
• A day before the expiration of the payment term, ask the customer’s accountancy about the fate of your account, recalling the payment deadline.

Some other excuses

As a bonus, I will give an example of the excuse that large companies like to use: “Oh, and we have all the accounts signed by a financial (general, etc.) director, and he is now on a business trip (vacation, sick, etc.).”
')
In such cases, you can answer something like this: “Remind me, please, what were your deadlines? Ah, catch the exhibition? Well, you find a way to contact your boss and say that without his signature you cannot send an invoice for payment, and you have a deadline, you have to do everything for the exhibition. We didn’t prescribe anything about the leave of our bosses, right? ”

A more or less intelligent manager understands what's what, and the method works in 9 cases out of 10 without further aggravating the situation.

Sometimes, however, there are instances that say “how, we have a deadline in the contract”. And here you should have a good contract, in which the procedure for payment, time delay, and suspension of work is specified to the smallest detail. Then you can answer: “Yes, the contract contains terms, including the terms of payment, as well as the suspension of work during the delay. If you do not pay on time, we are forced to suspend work on your order and take up the order of a solvent customer, we also have expenses. ”

In the case when the conversation is conducted with an accountant, a slight hint of penalties helps to bring him to life ;-) “Ay, Maria Vasilyevna, I have a very strict boss, I can hardly beg him so that I will not expose you to penalties.”

Questions to readers

1. What payment problems do you most often have?
2. What do customers delay payment?
3. How do you solve these problems?