Unpaid invoice for work done

Johnandabby

Vectis wrote: »

Er, yes, that's exactly what the OP should be doing. It's what any company with a good grip on it's finances would do.

If a client has a bad payment history, why on earth would you extend credit to them? That would be madness.

In our business we ask for payment up front for all new clients and for those who haven't previously kept to our payment terms. Are you seriously suggesting it's 'unbusinesslike' to do that?!

Exactly what we do, I would be stupid to do work at risk for a known bad payer without getting payment up front - that makes complete sense businesswise, I'm not a charity!

Unfortunately there are too many people who take any opportunity to not pay their invoices, and I would be stupid to be caught out twice by the same person by not altering the contract/t&cs.

AbbieCadabra

i know someone in a very similar position. based on what i've found out (just the basic companies house info & duedil), if this particular client had approached us to do the work, i would have insisted on at least part payment up-front & the balance paid before we left site. unfortunately the person who did the work gave the client credit & is now struggling to get paid.

when the job was taken on, it wasn't made clear that the client would want the work billed to one of his Ltd. companies (in an area of business absolutely nothing to do with the work undertaken - ie.property renovation job but invoice to his dry-cleaning company - again, another very big alarm bell for me). from what i can see, this looks like the Ltd. will be closed down very soon owing a large sum of money. i'd hazard a guess that anyone who worked for him on this particular project may have been caught out the same if he's managed to con them into giving credit.

a lesson learned for a new'ish sole trader in this instance & hopefully in future he'll follow the golden rule of 'don't leave the job/site unless you've been paid'.

Mistral001

Vectis wrote: »

In our business we ask for payment up front for all new clients and for those who haven't previously kept to our payment terms. Are you seriously suggesting it's 'unbusinesslike' to do that?!

I was commenting on the OP's situation and business and not making a generalisation. Off course you would be an idiot to extend credit to someone who has previously not paid a bill that you have sent, but the OP was going on hearsay and nothing else.