How To Collect Your Past Due Accounts
So you have delivered your project on time or perhaps even ahead of time and your client still won’t pay you on time. What are your options? Do you send them a firm email or shout at their accounts department?
The difficulty for any business owner waiting for payment is to weigh up the cost of demanding payment and risk spoiling an otherwise mutually beneficial arrangement or allow yourself to be taken for a ride.
Nobody like to think that their invoice is being put to the bottom of the pile because it is the least important, so one way to try and stop this happening is to make sure you are in your client’s thoughts.
This can be done by a simple phone call which after the pleasantries moves onto the issue of the outstanding payment. If that doesn’t work then you can repeat your demands with an email outlining when the invoice was due to be paid.
Hopefully at this point you will receive what you are owed. If this is not the case after waiting a reasonable amount of time, then it may be time to consider using a collection agency who will be able to take on all the hard awkward work of chasing your client for payment.
Sometimes removing yourself from the equation can help salvage the business relationship if the client is just having some temporary cash flow difficulties.