Getting clients to pay on time

I am sure everyone has come accross this problem in time.

I was hoping to get pointers from others to see what do you guys do to ensure you get paid on time or within reason?

Threatening to hold my breath until they pay doesn't seem to be working:laugh:

Have you considered buying a firearm?

Indeed this is a continuous problem for us , spoend more time chasing money then work !

Knew a firm a few years ago and the boss employed guys straight out of prison, paid them the bare minimum if after 6 months they were any good he upped there money and the ones that wanted to leave left with a good reference from him rather than HM Prisons, he had a murderer, several armed robbers, and several guys assault with deadly weapon, funny how he always got his money, never a late payment.:bigsmile:

i use a Debt collecting company that always seem to get my Money , they charge 10% and provide you with a vat invoice so you can of set it against your tax ,

I always have a clause on my quotation for a 30 day payment terms and if the 30 days are up my accountant send a dept letter to them, if that doesn't work I can get the bank to right one for a small charge and them letters can be used in a small claims court as a last resort.

Im afraid this is a real grey area, and the law needs to change, especially to protect the small medium enterprises from the cashflow crisis late or none payement otherwise can create.
Im afraid the model in this country is based upon good will, small court action is a waste of time, as the none payer would rather be wound up and able to operate under a different guise, debt recovery agencies as a general rule of thumb don't work, nor does the promise of a good beating with which i've resorted to in the past. As it stands at the moment for this year alone we have around 70k of bad debt with which im simply not going to get paid for, thus in turn to keep the books balanced and the overdraft under some sort of order, we've laid off two good blokes and tightened our belts considerably, it sickens me to be honest that two lads out of work and 70k written off because I got played for a sucker!

The only suggestion I can make is choose your client base on those that do pay ontime, a tall order i know considering how its dog eat dog out there at the moment.

im not advising anyone to do the following , but after many years of chasing money thru solicitors, the courts, knocking on doors etc etc i have literally tried everything possible and like most people on here have heard many a story of what others have tried to recover debts to no end result.

A) try getting paid up front for as much work as possible
B) try getting a percentage up front if the above dont work
C) before accepting a job try negotiate a weekly or fortnightly payment scheme

D) like the animal says employ the right man to collect your debts , dont go round threaten to break his legs if you dont intend breaking them when he doesnt pay , it just makes you look stupid and weak , either you or someone hard enough knock on there door tell him if he dont pay you gonna break his arm, then if still no money break it and tell him he got 72hrs before the other one gets broken, then his wife will be next.

sounds harsh but gets results, at least 75% of non payers are chancers taking the piss, the other 25% probably having a ruff time , you need to keep constant contact with the latter at least 2 times a week making sure they know this debt needs paying one way or another and its not going away, try sort a payment plan out thats workable and insist deadlines are met.

the legal system is total waste of space dont even go there , you have to pay everything upfront , a friend of mine was owed £30,000 pound off a surgeon getting paid £104,000 a year basic at the local hospital, the court ordered the surgeon to pay £50-00 a month, this was 2 years after job was finished.

construction is one of the only sectors that gives 30 days plus credit to people , how many times has anyone on here needed work doing by local authority or utilities people and had to pay upfront.

a good book to read is a book called The Guv,ner co written by a man many people will have heard of on here, his name Lenny Mclean, hard as nails and if you knew lenny was coming to collect you feckin well made sure the money was there for him :laugh:

Start taking the scaffold down they owe you money for.
Done it a few times and it has worked everytime !

WOW. Talk about creative ideas.

Will take it all on board.

i have been lucky so far in this respect, no knockers as yet, some right slow payers though,
i don't know why there's not a thread with names and company names of bad payers/knockers ,could help others avoid these fookers in the future

If its repeat business then i find it better to give them a little breathing space if not then get the big dogs out

I am a big fan of the debt collectors, always seem to get the job done and the client wont keep you waiting so long the next time. I wonder how many of Roks subbies thought they would play the nice guy and give them a break as they have always paid us eventually. Let the dogs go sooner rather than later.

fair point fella

Hi,

If you are dealing with other businesses you could try running a credit report to see if they are credit worthy in the first place.

Please give us a call on 01623 869999 or visit our website by clicking on our company logo for more information and some great offers for scaffolding forum members.

Regards

Riskdisk

We use riskdisk and its excellent - however not on par with experian credit ratings tho

Thanks for the positive comment Scaffy.

All credit reference agencies have their own formula for working out ratings and limits, on some we will be higher and on others we may be lower but on average we have one of the most accurate score cards in the industry.

If anybody would like to test this out then please get in touch.

Hi Riskdisk, is it a monthly charge or how does it work?

Sorry, welcome to the forum, another welcome addition, well done admin.

aom said:

I am a big fan of the debt collectors, always seem to get the job done and the client wont keep you waiting so long the next time. I wonder how many of Roks subbies thought they would play the nice guy and give them a break as they have always paid us eventually. Let the dogs go sooner rather than later.

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As a ROK supplier they never kept us waiting more than 45 days max, a bit over the 30 days but you thought they where ok, trouble is time the credit checks alerted us, we had about 2 weeks notice, too late to do owt about:sad:

That's the problem when dealing with the nationals Hatterscaff, how do you use the information given correctly. Different signals will mean different things to different size companies.