One of the most common problems that affects businesses is that their customers owe them money. When you’ve done the work but people are being slow to pay you, you can get behind with bills and be short of money to invest in your business. This is an annoying situation — you’re being chased for debts that other people refuse to pay. There are, though, a few ways to improve your customers’ payment speed.
Remember You’re a Credit Provider.
When you do work and invoice afterwards you are extending credit to your customers. As such, if the cost is going to be high, you should consider running a credit check on them before you start work. This will show you whether the company you’re about to do work for is in trouble, and can help avoid lots of problems later on. You can run credit checks online at a low cost.
Give Invoices a Due Date.
A mistake many home businesses make is to send invoices that have a fancy layout and say how much the customer owes, but don’t contain any direct instruction to pay now. This results in customers receiving the invoice and putting it on their ‘unimportant chores’ pile — you know, the one that doesn’t get done for months. Continue reading →