invoicing

[CaptB]

I find most of my clients fair. I have one which is a nightmare. Very large pub chain. I find it depends on the relationship with the company. The Pub chain needs chasing on the 30 days and will pay up around 15 days after that. But they do pay and they do pay well.
I also have local authorities on my books I just note the payment dates and keep track of them. Since 9 times out of 10 they are after 60 - 90 days. But due to the size of them and that they are a guaranteed payment I leave them
and await payment as I want the work off them. Chasing accounts departments can have a very adverse affect on your business if your not careful.
You have to be careful with your cashflow regardless.

[Mememe]

Advice is not to put "30 days" or "60 days" etc on invoices because it is open to interpretation eg does 30 days start from when I received the invoice or when you sent it because I never received it - can you send it again? or is 30 days calendar days or business days?

Best bet is to just put an actual due date on the invoice. Then, a couple of days before the invoice is due, give the customer a call to see if everything is ok with the work that was done and will there be any problems with the invoice. Don't wait for problems to occur - head them off.

[CaptB]

All my invoices are market Payment on completion. If its a company expecting 30 days etc... generally they`ll take it no matter whats written on the invoice. They know you want the work and you`ll have to absorb the first
30 days trading with them. On the plus side if you ever pack up everyone owes you a months money

[lockdr]

Some put something on invoice like "xx% discount if paid by the 10th..." or similar wording. Usually 1 or 2 % but that's usually enough to make Accounting's eyes light up. One problem: Some big firms will take take a month or two while it goes through all thew different inbaskets, THEN pay by the 10th and take the discount. As these are usually large companies, they are eventually good for it, though.

[Raccoon]

I don't put dates on my invoice. When I invoice joe-customer, they feel that I'm doing them a favor, and so they will usually get right on the ball and send payment ASAP. Those that I've had to chase down, I would have had to chase down regardless because they were poor. If I were to put "payment made within 30 days", suddenly those ASAP payments would take a month to arrive.

Works the same for companies. They'd ignore any date I put on it anyway, so I just settle for their bureaucracy and get paid whenever they normally cut checks. If they feel intimidated by my payment clause, they may stop doing business with me.

I believe the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to specifying a date.

[Raccoon]

Also, if I were a large company and had two invoices sitting in front of me; one stating a due date 30 days from now, and another without a date... I would most definitely cut a check for the invoice without a due date and file the "30 day" invoice for the next batch of checks being cut 2 weeks from now.

[ldnlksmth]

I've found a way around this:

New customer calls (commercial) and wants work done. When booking the call, I say (to everyone I don't have established terms with) "and we ask that the technician get paid after the work is done". I deal with a fair number of small businesses, and the secretary/office manager is often my contact.

When I'm done, I present the invoice and ask if the person responsible for accounts payable is available to settle. Usually they reply no and tell me they send out a cheque every month. I (still holding the keys to whatever I was working on) then explain that my 'accounting manager' (it's me, but they don't need to know that) doesn't allow me to extend credit without a thorough investigation first. I offer to accept payment by cash, cheque or credit card and usually start to annoy the person I'm talking to by this time because they don't want me standing around.

Bottom line is that I usually get paid out of petty cash establish net 30 terms with them and get repeat business.

obviously, none of this applies to bid jobs or large scale re-fits etc.