Paying Invoices by Cheque

Silvershine

We are a very small company (turnover approx £15k). Many of our customers are older and have been paying us by personal cheque for many years. Some of them do not own a computer, or smartphone (to download payment apps) nor even email. We have been collecting their cheques and depositing them (on their behalf) for many years. We are "rapidly" approaching old age ourselves (in fact I am "retired") and are having quite serious mobility problems. This means we can no longer collect their cheques and "go" and deposit them.into our account. One complaint we get is that if they go to any bank to pay their cheques into our account there is nowhere on the deposit slip that they can record what they are paying i.e.a reference or an invoice number. This is causing them some anxiety. Does anyone have any advice (that I can impart to them)?

Robin9

Do you post the invoices to your customers?

Could they post the cheque payments to you ? Perhaps include a sae ?

Owain_Moneysaver

There is a "reference" field available on bank transfers that senders can use to identify their funds transfer to you - your bank should be able to advise. The transaction would then be identifiable on both your and their bank statement.

Other alternatives are
- a virtual terminal so you can take credit/debit payments by phone, eg https://smallbusinessprices.co.uk/phone-payments/ or https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/phone

- joining a network like Paypoint or Payzone which takes payments through shops etc. Unlikely to be cost effective for low volume / low value transactions.

There are also virtual call centre providers that you can outsource call handling to and who can also take a telephone payment from your customer, process it in a PCI compliant manner, and you'd get a daily email or similar with a list of customers who've paid.

https://www.dawleys.com/contact-centre/

http://www.cdllogistics.com/payment-processing.html

Ben8282

What sort of business send out invoices then goes round to customers houses collecting the cheques from them? Sounds like some sort of extortion racket ….

born_again

They can Write reference no's etc on the reverse of the cheque. If they are able to get to their bank, they can make the payment via a Faster Payment over the counter. Or they can ring their bank and make the payment.

Sadly you have 2 options. Either fully retire or your customers will have to move with the times.

Silvershine

posting the cheque to us does not improve the situation (I.e. we still have to go to the bank to deposit them). Yes we do give them invoices.

Robin9

Silvershine wrote: »

posting the cheque to us does not improve the situation (I.e. we still have to go to the bank to deposit them). Yes we do give them invoices.

Can you make deposits by post ?

Silvershine

Thanks for that more than useless comment Ben - no racket involved - it was a genuine request for advice!

Nebulous2

How happy are you with using technology?

Some banking apps now allow you to take a photograph of the cheque and pay it in electronically without handing in the cheque. It might be limited to personal accounts, but could be worthwhile investigating.

Silvershine

This seems like an option but .... If the invoice number / reference no is written on the back of the their cheque - how do we identify what the payment is for on this side (on our bank statement)?

Silvershine

I don't have a problem with using technology - just my customers lol!