Are your customers paying on time?

Slow payers (and even no-payers) are some of the worst customers a business can have. Until the client’s invoice is paid, your business needs to pay costs and expenses for the project out of pocket. Spending time chasing down those slow payers also hurts a business’s bottom line.

When your business is a small one, those out-of-pocket expenses can hurt. And you know what, you’re not a bank! When a customer is late to pay, you are effectively extending them credit – giving them an unsecured, interest free loan!

Side note: Norm Brodsky writes a great chapter on this in his book, The Knack – How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up. Definitely recommended reading.
When we developed WORK[etc], we wanted to make sure business owners were saving time, not spending more of it doing routine tasks. Realising the obvious that time is money, we intentionally devoted part of our efforts to helping businesses bring in that money.

Here are tips to use WORK[etc]’s system to turn those slow-payers into pay-sooners:

1. WORK[etc] offers one-click reports that let you keep track of overdue payments. You won’t forget about an unpaid invoice, it won’t get lost in the shuffle and you can monitor the account so that the situation doesn’t get out of hand.
2. Making it easy to pay means more clients pay faster. Offering more ways to pay means your customers are happier, too. So we made sure to integrate easy payment options like Authorize.net, PayPal, Google Checkout and 2Checkout right into WORK[etc]’s system to make sure you get paid.
3. Reminders work. There are plenty of clients who don’t have bad intentions; they’re just busy, and they forget to pay you. WORK[etc] takes care of that. The system automatically generates reminder notifications for clients on the day payment becomes overdue. You don’t have to worry about forgetting to follow up, and you won’t have to feel like a nag, either.
4. WORK[etc] generates a monthly list of late payers so you can call these customers directly. Sometimes just that can sometimes prompt a customer to pay. If clients are having payment problems and need to make arrangements, the call gives them that opportunity. No more ignored invoices!
5. Reward prompt clients who pay on time or monitor problem customers easily with WORK[etc]’s tagging system. You can filter clients who didn’t pay on time and offer discounts to those who settled their bill before it was due.  Pretty cool huh?

When it comes to invoicing and collections, out of sight can sometimes mean out of mind. Pay attention to who’s late on payments and who isn’t, stay on top of collections and follow-up with clients, and make sure that your business maintains a good stream of income all the time.

Oh – and with our software update due shortly, managing complex billing scenarios will be a whole lot easier. You’ll be able to bill in multiple currencies, run complex tax scenarios, set up a library of discounts and charge clients according to activity, employee or project rates.