When Customers Don't Pay

We all know that customers not paying their invoices can mean the difference between a happy working week and something a little more stressful.

If you're a small business, customer invoices can be an absolute nightmare, which is why we've put together some advice to encourage prompt payment from your customers.

We've all dealt with customers that will wait until the last possible moment to pay up and clear their outstanding balance. 

To help you prevent and solve payment problems without getting stressed we've put together some quick tips to guide you.

The majority of the tasks that follow can be automated using certain systems to take away the need for any additional work. These tasks will help to prevent customers from taking advantage of you by not allowing them to consistently pay invoices late.

You can start putting these rules and procedures into effect from your very first consultation with the customer by providing a service agreement and clearly stating payment terms, conditions and penalties for late payment.

Some of the things that you can do to encourage prompt payment are:

1. Have a service agreement in place clearly stating payment terms, conditions and penalties.
2. Issue clear and regular invoices.
3. State clear payment terms on your invoices.
4. Send the client a reminder email a few days before the invoice is due and again on the day that the invoice is due.
5. If an invoice is unpaid send an email the day after the invoice was due.
6. If unpaid 3 days later call to request payment and again after 7 days.
7. If your customer still has not paid 7 days after the invoice is due issue the customer with a letter/email detailing that their services will cease until payment has been issued.

You can also take task 7 a step further by advising that if any subsequent invoices are not cleared by their due date, services will cease immediately.

In some special circumstances customers could be really struggling to pay your invoices. We would advise, under genuine circumstance, that you work with the customer to arrange a payment agreement that is beneficial to both parties.

If for any reason there is a dispute and the customer refuses to make payment it may be advisable to seek legal advice or the services of a debt recovery agency but these options should often be used as a last resort if an amiable agreement cannot be arranged.

If you need any assistance with keeping on top of customer invoices the Admin Angels UK team would be happy to help. Simply click the chat icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to chat with a customer service representative.