[carl stanton]

hi all!
do you use credit card payment for customers to pay you? say like paypal , for domestic customers
unless you build a charge in for it you need to put a 8% surcharge on top of window charge or put another price rise on top of normal price increase
 
 what do you think? and how have you got on with it and customer response? bigger jobs and one off jobs i can see it ok!

[holland1945]

Hi Carl

I was toying with this idea and looked into taking Credit Card payments. But, if you're being charged an 8% surcharge you're being ripped off.

You could either accept paypal via a website, or set up a Merchant Account and then pay someone like Alldaypa to accept the calls and process the payments.

Either way is going to appear slightly more expensive than collecting the money, but when you factor in time and petrol costs for collecting you might be surprised. To minimise the effect of the charges you could get the customers to pay you quarterly on their credit cards.

[carl stanton]

the charge of 8% is what i would have to add to the price for the clean! so £5 for the clean and if paying by card i would add 8% so that i would still get the £5 i earned for cleaning there windows!
 paypal charge say 3.4% and a 20p charge so hence the 8% [ish]
charge
 
i was thinking of customners to give me a load of cheuqes and cashing one each time i do a clean, saves them sending one! trust is involved though!

[matt]

i use paypal and nochex

a fair few now pay with paypal, even though i lost 51p in a 9 quid clean, i still like it, as i then have a bit of money to spend on ebay

[ray l]

 Hi all
Most banks will offer free standing order.
(If you make up your own instruction with consecitive numbers (one per customer) the number will correspond to a customer so you can keep tabs on a customers payments.
I havn,t started this yet but it,s a option I,bve been toying with.
One of the gods does this and admits it motivates him into getting that job done so that he doesn,t have to give back the money.

Also you could come to an agreement of say 3 cleans you leave a prepaid envelope (cost of a second class stamp)

[carl stanton]

i have also thought of a standing order, but being on time with weather and that is my worry. [get out there and get on with!!]

matt at the end of the day i spose it is better to lose 51p on £9 rather than run around and collect! and then you can spend the time saved on e-bay! ooh dangerous!

[Mick (UHPS)]

I have pre-printed slips I leave when I haven't been paid. They are A6 cost £20 for 6 books of 100 sheets and were designed for me with my logo and offering on.

At the bottom it says:

Would customers who are out on the day of cleaning kindly forward payment by cheque made payable to: uhps, address etc.

I explain this to customers when i take them on and it works, I have never called back for payments and dont have any issues with non payers to date.

Mick

[rs_cleancare]

Hi, a few of my customers pay me by internet payment. So if they have accsess to there account online they can just transfer it over to your account.
The great thing it dosn't cost you a penny.

Rob.

[wightsurf]

If you have your customers e-mail , then you can send them a bil from paypal with out needing a web site.

[carl stanton]

thanks for your thought! 
i do use printed a5 leaflets with all the details, but have to wait 3 months for a few customers, my own fault though i have said in the past dont mind waiting for it! oops 
but i do say send a chq in the post, one or two pay by bank transfer but im a bit iffy about that!
i am going to do a news letter type thing to see what customers would do 

[Mick (UHPS)]

You could alter the wording to say something like " within 30 days" as you would your commercial invoices.

Mick

[danny mckim]

WHY DONT YOU COLLECT FROM CUSTOMERS EVERY THIRD CLEAN. WE DO THIS AND IT SAVES ALOT OF TIME. WE ONLY SEE THEM EVERY 6 WEEKS WHERE AS B4 WE WERE COLLECTING THEM EVERY FORTNIGHT. MAKE SURE U GET PAID FOR THE 1 YOU CLEAN THEN THE NEXT 2 IN ADVANCE AS SOME PEOPLE WILL MOVE AND LEAVE YOU OUT OF POCKET. THIS WORKS A TREAT FOR US


                                            DANNY

[petetaylor56]

 :)i do a slip which asks them to pay within 7 days                             
WINDOWS CLEANED                    £                         
WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO SEND A CHEQUE WITHIN 7 DAYS
MADE PAYABLE TO :    xxxxxxxx
                                       
PLEASE PUT NAME                                                      Any Problems   
AND ADDRESS ON                                                       0123456789
BACK OF CHEQUE                                                       0123456789     

[windows_chepstow]

                         
WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO SEND A CHEQUE WITHIN 7 DAYS
MADE PAYABLE TO :    xxxxxxxx
                                           

Pete, I'd change this wording to 'Please send a cheque within seven days, made payable to...'.

'Would it be possible...', sounds a bit wishy washy.

[carl stanton]

all good points i have put ,basically , plwease pay wwithin 30 days, and customers seems happy with it 
time will tell