[Joey Eastwood]

Thinking about using some sort of online payment service, collecting once a week is starting to become like a new job al l in itself, amd  in the winter is obviously worse.  the odd customer is never in/forgot i was going to call round, has no cash etc etc, how does everyone do this? I was looking at gocardless but does thst mean all customers have to sign up to that to pay me? Also what happens if customers dont use online banking and stuff like that? Any help appreciated cheers

[dazmond]

give em your bank details so they can pay by online bank transfer.also get their mobile no. if you havent already got it to send them a text reminder after 14 days if they ve not paid.

if they dont do online banking leave a SAE and ask them to send you a cheque

if they dont do cheques get them to set up a standing order into your bank every month

if they dont do any of the above get them to pay you cash on the day or collect on a certain day of the week.

i have a mixture of all 4 methods above and it works well.i always have "rolling debt" from month to month but its manageable.my collecting has been drastically reduced over the last few years to roughly an hour a week on a monday evening now and i have 300+ customers(mostly 4 weekly)

[Shane O Neill]

what do you have currently on your payment slips Joey ?
As Dazmond has said You need to inform customers now of various options open to them to pay their bill !
you have done the work & provided a service..... now to return is a job in itself ,make life easier by doing bacs ,trust me most customers prefer this methods

[Mike #1]

Before you even start thinking about GoCardless or Bacs you need to sort some decent payment cards informing custys of payment options and time frame in which to pay mine is 3 days .

I started off with with slips i had printed off my laptop i now have a local printer do them .

[dazmond]

on invoices my bank details are on there for certain large domestic and commercial.

run of the mill customers only need your bank details once so print some slips out for those that wish to pay by BACS/standing order.

[Ryan Davies]

I got some cards printed out from a printing company with all the payment options on, BACS etc and now cut our collecting down to 1 day a week. try this before using GOCARDLESS.

[Joey Eastwood]

I didnt think of making a new slip to be honest, good idea. At the moment iv got the standard 'windows cleaned today, will call back later' i will try making a new slip with bank details on and roll it out over christmas. Some of my work is half hour away and its awkward finishing at four to go home for half an hour to go back and collect at 5, plus when its dark i cant work later and collect straight away. I will give it a go and see how it works thanks for the advice everyone

[Joey Eastwood]

I was thinking aswel how do you keep up with who has paid etc? I do a round of £10 houses if 10 out of 15 pay how do i know which ones have?

[KS Cleaning]

I was thinking aswel how do you keep up with who has paid etc? I do a round of £10 houses if 10 out of 15 pay how do i know which ones have?

There will be a reference box on the payment page, tell them to put their address in the reference box.

[Ryan Davies]

Tell your customers to put there address as reference or make a note of there surname as a few always forget.