Customer owes £1,000 - what to do?

Curly

lol i just found the thread today and im glad its a bit like a soap lol :P got all the storie start to finish

gd work getting your cash

bankersnight

Congrats!:)

little_evo

Yay! Been reading this and waiting to see what was going to happen. Really pleased for you and well done on not letting this go.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

its been a stressfull time, but at least you will soon have that money in your account..

will you get the full amount she owed? or is there a slight shortfall?

hippyadam

We're like the A-Team us Well done OP

hippyadam

rapido wrote: »

Well finally a letter arrived from the county court... enclosing a cheque for the full amount! Which is almost £1,300 now, but of course the original bill was for about £1,000, so she's had to stump up extra for the court/bailiff fees etc.

I was almost looking forward to putting a charge on her land (!), but seriously am glad it's all over now. Now I can concentrate on this year's sales rather than worry about last year's!

Thanks to everyone for their help, especially Hippyadam, Cooltrikerchick, and Savvy_Sue..... otherwise I might've given up!

-rapido

Yaaaay beers on you then!

:beer:

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i think i will open that bottle of Asti- to celebrate..( any excuse )

seriously.... well done i am soooooooooooooo glad you have the cheque
as you say you can put all that behind you now, and concentrate on future sales...

just out of curio, have you change anything with your business now because of this experience? new payment terms etc?

as this is also a learning curve for people who are reading this thread...

Savvy_Sue

rapido wrote: »

However I know that most garden centres will want to eat their cake and still have it. For example, I sent a letter explaining that I was giving 28 days credit to one particular centre, and got it sent back by fax with the following scribbled in the corner:

"We pay the end of month following the month of invoice. There can be no exceptions. We trust this is acceptable".

So there you go, I have to put up with the centres dictating the terms, whilst they make huge profits (more than I do) on my plants! It's not the end of the world, but it's very demeaning. Unfortunately, it just has to be put up with, otherwise most of my customers would refuse to buy, full stop.

I might start making sure that as many orders of this kind as possible went out in the last week of the month, with the invoice, so that it was only a little over the 28 days before payment.

But I realise that may not work all the time for a number of reasons.

Of course another option is to say that invoices which are paid within 28 days get a 2% discount, or that those NOT paid within 28 days have a 5% surcharge. Others will know how best to word such terms.

Oh, and the plumbers we use at work have a note on their invoices to the effect that prompt payment will be noted, and remembered in an emergency. :rotfl: I do pay them promptly!

hippyadam

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Of course another option is to say that invoices which are paid within 28 days get a 2% discount, or that those NOT paid within 28 days have a 5% surcharge. Others will know how best to word such terms.

That is a good idea, but the way to work it is to say that you give a 5-10% discount for prompt payment (but secretly you just add 10% to every quote) and always quote for the lower figure.

You will need to have it listed clearly in your T&C's and on the invoice Ie:

£100 (Including prompt payment discount)

Most customers wont question it as they aren't going to admit to being a slow payer Also OP make sure that you get your T&C's signed & returned. They wont do you any good in court if you can not produce a signed copy showing the client has accepted them

bengalknights

With all the settlement discount being offered would it not be easier to maybe use a factoring company one of the advantages being that some of them automatically do credit searches so will know the bad debtors straight away.