[Clean Cloth]

I mostly clean residential properties every 4 weeks, I do clean for a caravan park weekly but the owners pay on the day unless they are off site, but I know I will get paid the next week.

I clean a Methodist Church 8 weekly at their request. It is awkward access but only takes me 20 minutes and I charge £15. I know some of you would not get out of bed for that but if I can earn £25-£30 an hour with my non compact round I am happy. (New work is getting priced higher).

On the day I clean the Church, I write a ticket and drop it into the Treasurers house on the way home, I have been cleaning them for over 18 months and was hoping I would get the cheque (they wont do bank transfer or cash) with a week or 2. First time I had to telephone the treasurer after 6 weeks of no payment, other cleans I have had to wait between 2 and 5 weeks. I just got a cheque hand posted from the work I did 8 weeks ago. She lives 2 minutes drive from me.

How long do you give businesses to pat up?

I was due to clean then last Monday but as the cheque had not arrived then I did not clean them.
The only reason I am hesitant to drop them is because I was asked last year to price for cleaning out their gutters (45 meters and some grass growing out of them in places), I quoted £180 but never heard anything.

[Richard iSparkle]

Unless you agree a payment date, the customer must pay you within 30 days of getting your invoice or the goods or service.

I use Xero for my books and I send the invoice from Xero, and then they get 5 automatic reminders to pay. once they pass that date I'll send them a warning email and then add charges 2 weeks after that

so the final reminder goes out 52 days after the invoice date and then i give them another 2 weeks

[NWH]

Not meaning to be funny but £15 come on Is it worth doing.

[Ooooooog]

Some companies will give you ‘their’ payment terms. This can often be a couple of months and that’s if there’s no issue with purchase order numbers etc.
They often do ‘payment runs’ and it’s important to establish which run your invoice will be paid on.

[Clean Cloth]

Not meaning to be funny but £15 come on Is it worth doing.

I did not think you were being funny.
To answer your question, no it probably is not worth the stress of getting wound up waiting for payment.
I am working in a village where lots of other (some local some not) window cleaners work, so there is a lot of competition.
But maybe I should stop doing them and let them use another probably more expensive window cleaner.
I have been reliable turning up every 8 weeks on the dot and take pride in my work but the thought of knowing I will be waiting so long for payment does not inspire me to be as thorough as I normally would.

The thing is I could find fault with about 50% of my customers but do not have enough to be dropping them all, yet.

[Richard iSparkle]

one simple way to stop waiting for money is to get them to pay by direct debit

[NWH]

Even though you don’t have enough work yet I wouldn’t price jobs just for the sake of getting them,if you are cleaning a job for £15 and it should be say 30 when you have a full book of work you will need to replace all your jobs that are underpriced.
This job is all about getting work that’s going to make you a living and cover your costs and leave you enough left over for paying tax and fuel and paying for equipment etc,if you want to earn £50 for doing the job in you’re pocket you need to add on half again for the above expenses so that £50 job should be 75 if you catch my drift,don’t be left with a load of work that’s hardly worth doing even from the start it’ll take years to build and then years again to sort wheat from chaff.

[NWH]

Get emails and mobile numbers from every customer so if they are late paying you can nudge them from those.

[AuRavelling79]

Dump. Walk away. Don't look back except to learn never to do it again.

[Simon Trapani]

If you’re not happy with it just dump.

[Slacky]

Stick with it.

Ask for an explanation, explain your terms. Then play it by ear.

[Spruce]

Some companies will give you ‘their’ payment terms. This can often be a couple of months and that’s if there’s no issue with purchase order numbers etc.
They often do ‘payment runs’ and it’s important to establish which run your invoice will be paid on.

Exactly ^^^^^

 We work for a company who does a cheque run once a month. They also allow themselves 4 working days to process that invoice.
In the ideal world, if we do the clean on the 15th of January our invoice will get onto the cheque run on the 1st March. It can also take them 2 weeks to post the cheques out.

But if we do the job on the 30th of January the invoice will only be processed on the 2nd or 3rd of February which means it goes onto the 1st of April's cheque run. With late postage we might only receive that cheque in the 3rd week of April.
We are doing the job tomorrow and then I harass the accounts dept to confirm that the invoice has got onto the cheque run for the 1st March.

So their payment terms of 30 days isn't exactly true as it could easily extend to 60 days. In fact there have been 2 months in the last 3 years where they advised the invoice was on the cheque run and it wasn't. Those 2 payments became 90 days. (My gut tells me that was done on purpose.)

[dazmond]

I mostly clean residential properties every 4 weeks, I do clean for a caravan park weekly but the owners pay on the day unless they are off site, but I know I will get paid the next week.

I clean a Methodist Church 8 weekly at their request. It is awkward access but only takes me 20 minutes and I charge £15. I know some of you would not get out of bed for that but if I can earn £25-£30 an hour with my non compact round I am happy. (New work is getting priced higher).

On the day I clean the Church, I write a ticket and drop it into the Treasurers house on the way home, I have been cleaning them for over 18 months and was hoping I would get the cheque (they wont do bank transfer or cash) with a week or 2. First time I had to telephone the treasurer after 6 weeks of no payment, other cleans I have had to wait between 2 and 5 weeks. I just got a cheque hand posted from the work I did 8 weeks ago. She lives 2 minutes drive from me.

How long do you give businesses to pat up?

I was due to clean then last Monday but as the cheque had not arrived then I did not clean them.
The only reason I am hesitant to drop them is because I was asked last year to price for cleaning out their gutters (45 meters and some grass growing out of them in places), I quoted £180 but never heard anything.

thats a silly reason for keeping them on AS YOU DIDNT GET THE GUTTER JOB.....personally id dump it...its really not worth messing about for £15...a cheque too!id want paying by BACS within 14 days,if not then cash on the day or card payment...if they wont agree then id walk away....

[NWH]

I wouldn’t do any job for £15 I don’t know where you are but if you have south east England in you’re address you are to cheap

[DrewHastings]

Get the contact details of the Minister. Methodists like to move their Ministers every couple of years, but this should be easy to find online.
As the Ministers are moved quite often, the treasurers and other committee members think they run the world, and control everything.
However, a quick word from the Minister 'why do they have to wait so long for payment?' should be enough to get things moving. Failing that, turn up on a Sunday morning and ask what the delay is

[AuRavelling79]

Get the contact details of the Minister. Methodists like to move their Ministers every couple of years, but this should be easy to find online.
As the Ministers are moved quite often, the treasurers and other committee members think they run the world, and control everything.
However, a quick word from the Minister 'why do they have to wait so long for payment?' should be enough to get things moving. Failing that, turn up on a Sunday morning and ask what the delay is

Yes. Quote this scripture too ... 

James 5:4, NIV: "Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty."

Humour aside - I would kindly suggest you look at your working practices ... everything surrounding this says that the job is priced too low and that you haven't made a practice of "setting out your stall" beforehand as in - "the price is £XXX and I would like to be paid by return, does that sound reasonable to you?"

[Clean Cloth]

Thanks for the suggestions.

To answer a few comments.

I am in Lincolnshire and the going rate seems to be about £1 a window.
I charge £10-12 for a detached bungalow £15 if it has a conservatory. I have been told quite a few times I am expensive. Some here are still charging £5. I stick to my guns and wont drop.
I used to live in the south east and had a roofing business, the work there was plentiful and easier to charge a lot more.
I am not a youngster anymore and window cleaning is less physically demanding.

I can take 25-30 minutes cleaning a bungalow with a conservatory so it did not seem like I was undercharging for the Church as it only takes 20 minutes.
When I was given a cheque the first time I asked if she could do a bank transfer of pay cash but was told that option was not available.
I do have her phone number and have had to chase payment a number of times. This time I wanted to see how long she would take to drop the cheque in bearing in mind she visits a neighbour 2 doors up from me most weeks.
I clean for the ex treasurer and mentioned to him about the slow payment and he said he used to pay tradesmen immediately.

[Splash & dash]

28 day turn around on commercial payment  never have a problem getting paid on time , it’s down to you to set your stall out when quoting for work it should be in your terms and conditions which the customer has to sign and agree with before any work starts , if you don’t do this then expect problems .

[NWH]

Time you pay Tax fuel and expenses that job is being done at a loss for £15,work out the time everything on that 1 job takes you getting there and getting to the next job etc that’s a fact.

[james peters]

be thank full you didn't get the gutter job.
you would have been kept waiting for your £180.

I only do a few commercial jobs , they all pay on the day.
its my business, and so payment is on my terms.