[James Styles]

I’m glad I made this post as I obviously have so much to learn.
Bloody hell me thinking of asking for measly £15 payments and some guys are waiting on over a grand! 
If I didn’t post this I’d of sent a polite reminder for sure, from now on I will wait a week before sending a text if no payment has been made.
I guess in some way I worry that I won’t get the payment at all, it’s like I feel anxious for the money to come in or I have little patience.
I need to change this.

[Smudger]

once your rolling money is always coming in, as you get more work the outstanding amount will increase but so will your income - as long as you don't let it get out of control by being too lax its nothing to worry about

don't let anyone get to the 3rd clean without paying for the previous 2

Darran

[Stoots]

I have a simple system

I send all my reminders once a week on a Sunday evening.

Everyone outstanding for 7 days or more gets a text.

Same every Sunday.

If a customer becomes due for their next clean with payment still outstanding they get skipped. (quite rare)

If the next clean rolls around and they still haven't paid (they have probably had half a dozen reminders by this point) they are removed from the round and told why and that if payment is not received in 14 days they will be passed on to debt collection.

These customers are then dumped regardless if they cough up.

One clean, one payment. This way you don't get taken for a mug, Ive been had for two, three and even four cleans before in the early days.

And yes don't panic, my rolling debt is £500 to £1500 regularly and the other week it was over 2 grand for the first time with two of us working. God knows how much some of the big boys must have rolling over each month.

I'm happy when I see mine drop below a grand and the only time I see it drop under £500 is if if I go away for a week or two.

[Smudger]

^^^^^^. I'm not telling - but it would fund Daz on a dozen 5* all inclusive holidays to Mexico 

Darran

[Stoots]

I’m glad I made this post as I obviously have so much to learn.
Bloody hell me thinking of asking for measly £15 payments and some guys are waiting on over a grand! 
If I didn’t post this I’d of sent a polite reminder for sure, from now on I will wait a week before sending a text if no payment has been made.
I guess in some way I worry that I won’t get the payment at all, it’s like I feel anxious for the money to come in or I have little patience.
I need to change this.

Well sometimes you won't get paid at all, I've lost about £200 this year in non payers. It happens, unfortunately unpaid invoices go with running any business and worrying about it won't change it. It used to bother me, but now I see it as another messer off the books and space for a better one.

[Smudger]

I have to say we only have 2 maybe 3 non payers a year - 60 to 100 quid

did get caught for 10K 3 years ago on a commercial clean    - that hurt but life goes on

Darran

[James Styles]

I’m glad I made this post as I obviously have so much to learn.
Bloody hell me thinking of asking for measly £15 payments and some guys are waiting on over a grand! 
If I didn’t post this I’d of sent a polite reminder for sure, from now on I will wait a week before sending a text if no payment has been made.
I guess in some way I worry that I won’t get the payment at all, it’s like I feel anxious for the money to come in or I have little patience.
I need to change this.

Well sometimes you won't get paid at all, I've lost about £200 this year in non payers. It happens, unfortunately unpaid invoices go with running any business and worrying about it won't change it. It used to bother me, but now I see it as another messer off the books and space for a better one.

What do you do when you don’t get paid? Do you just write them off and take it as a loss or do you take any legal action?

[Smudger]

small amounts write it off not worth the time and aggro IMO

larger stuff - court action

Darran

[James Styles]

I have to say we only have 2 maybe 3 non payers a year - 60 to 100 quid

did get caught for 10K 3 years ago on a commercial clean    - that hurt but life goes on

Darran

Wow 10k 
Was you not able to fight it legally?
That’s a massive amount to lose out on

[Smudger]

unfortunately he was a middle man, basically project management company for someone else ( can't say who or what they do ) but at the start of works the company had a over 200k cash - then when payment was due nothing - just before court they went  into voluntary liquidation owing 2.5 million - turns out he has 7 other companies - tough sh!t on me

Darran

[Slacky]

If you're wondering why a customer hasn't paid you within 4 hours of you cleaning their windows it might be because they're visiting their terminally ill partner/mother/sister/child in hospital or might just have received a similar diagnosis earlier that day themselves.

Your customer's lives do not revolve around your payment schedule.

[Slacky]

The biggest Ive been caught for was £1K.

[James Styles]

unfortunately he was a middle man, basically project management company for someone else ( can't say who or what they do ) but at the start of works the company had a over 200k cash - then when payment was due nothing - just before court they went  into voluntary liquidation owing 2.5 million - turns out he has 7 other companies - tough sh!t on me

Darran

Ouch! Sorry that happened man, what a w****r!

[jonny thompson]

Bungle you pib you’re horn all day long mate, she already knows your a perv

[Spruce]

Friday afternoons is our debt focusing day. We still collect although more and more are paying online.

I have my bank details and instructions on the back of my window cleaned slip for BACS payments.

Most of our customers have been with us for years now so we don't really have a lot of outstanding debt.  Most pay online within the week. There are a couple I have to remind them payment is due.

We've had the debt dramas in the past when we were new but as others have said, it takes time to get rid of the dross. Its part of the 'joys' of owning a business.
 

[dazmond]

Friday afternoons is our debt focusing day. We still collect although more and more are paying online.

I have my bank details and instructions on the back of my window cleaned slip for BACS payments.

Most of our customers have been with us for years now so we don't really have a lot of outstanding debt.  Most pay online within the week. There are a couple I have to remind them payment is due.

We've had the debt dramas in the past when we were new but as others have said, it takes time to get rid of the dross. Its part of the 'joys' of owning a business.
 

i work similar to you spruce however my "debt focusing " day is a monday evening,it has been for years now,this is when i send my outstanding payment text reminders and i still do some collecting and find mondays much better than friday evenings,i only do an hour or so 2 or 3 times a month now as most pay by BACS or on day of clean these days....

[Stoots]

I’m glad I made this post as I obviously have so much to learn.
Bloody hell me thinking of asking for measly £15 payments and some guys are waiting on over a grand! 
If I didn’t post this I’d of sent a polite reminder for sure, from now on I will wait a week before sending a text if no payment has been made.
I guess in some way I worry that I won’t get the payment at all, it’s like I feel anxious for the money to come in or I have little patience.
I need to change this.

Well sometimes you won't get paid at all, I've lost about £200 this year in non payers. It happens, unfortunately unpaid invoices go with running any business and worrying about it won't change it. It used to bother me, but now I see it as another messer off the books and space for a better one.

What do you do when you don’t get paid? Do you just write them off and take it as a loss or do you take any legal action?

I have in the past filed a few small claims online and won.

But I had one that refused to pay even after a had filed a small claim. When I realised that I would actually have to take a day off and attend court and present a case I realised this was just not feasible for a £10 -£20 job.

So these days I factor in non payers into my running costs, it's not ideal but if you accept you may lose say £20 a month then you can accept it

It might sound daft when starting out but when you have 500 customers losing a tenner here and there isn't really the end of the world and not worth fretting over

I use to also take revenge but I can't be arsed with that nowadays either it's not worth it.

[zesty]

Some of my customers wait weeks to pay, even though my ‘windows cleaned today’ slips state ‘please pay within 3 days’.

It’s part of this game I’m afraid. You’ll get the money eventually, so don’t worry.

I take the same view as Daz, I don’t really care as long as eventually they pay....

[deeege]

Friday afternoons is our debt focusing day. We still collect although more and more are paying online.

I have my bank details and instructions on the back of my window cleaned slip for BACS payments.

Most of our customers have been with us for years now so we don't really have a lot of outstanding debt.  Most pay online within the week. There are a couple I have to remind them payment is due.

We've had the debt dramas in the past when we were new but as others have said, it takes time to get rid of the dross. Its part of the 'joys' of owning a business.
 

i work similar to you spruce however my "debt focusing " day is a monday evening,it has been for years now,this is when i send my outstanding payment text reminders and i still do some collecting and find mondays much better than friday evenings,i only do an hour or so 2 or 3 times a month now as most pay by BACS or on day of clean these days....

Same here Daz. I only really collect one round of about 60 houses now, always a Monday and these days just one night a month.

I find Fridays a lot of customers were out for tea so Monday’s more productive.

I actually enjoy collecting this one night and it gives me chance to upsell some fascia/gutter cleans too.

[Spruce]

Friday afternoons is our debt focusing day. We still collect although more and more are paying online.

I have my bank details and instructions on the back of my window cleaned slip for BACS payments.

Most of our customers have been with us for years now so we don't really have a lot of outstanding debt.  Most pay online within the week. There are a couple I have to remind them payment is due.

We've had the debt dramas in the past when we were new but as others have said, it takes time to get rid of the dross. Its part of the 'joys' of owning a business.
 

i work similar to you spruce however my "debt focusing " day is a monday evening,it has been for years now,this is when i send my outstanding payment text reminders and i still do some collecting and find mondays much better than friday evenings,i only do an hour or so 2 or 3 times a month now as most pay by BACS or on day of clean these days....

Same here Daz. I only really collect one round of about 60 houses now, always a Monday and these days just one night a month.

I find Fridays a lot of customers were out for tea so Monday’s more productive.

I actually enjoy collecting this one night and it gives me chance to upsell some fascia/gutter cleans too.

And that's an important point, especially if someone is short of work and is looking for add-ons. I believe the reason why we have so many loyal customers is because we took the time to collect and develop a business relationship.

Although paying online is so much easier, I fear we are going to loose face to face contact with our customers who we may never see from one year to the next.

.