Customers paying late

[ShaunCorbs]

Yes
That is possibly the only thing I haven't done

worth a try on a couple if they ignore it in bold

 

[townfanjon]

Plumber uk , sorry I dont know your name ... Are you generally stacked out with work ? , Surely all your customers cant be bad payers , can they ?

 

[plumber_UK]

Yes fairly busy, not all my customers are like it. But id say more than 50% of them pay late.

When i finish a job most customers ask " are you going to send an invoice and ill send payment". That's their excuse to get me out of the door and then pay at their leisure but i always invoice whilst on site but they dont pay while im there.

 

[townfanjon]

This is a hard one especially if you employ somebody.
I will probably get slatted for an opinion like this ......But I would simply temporarily sack the bad payers , dont tell them . When they ring up again say you are not interested as you only want good prompt payers, call their bluff , if they use you again they will probably pay promptly , if they don't, sack them. We all work hard enough the last thing we want is crap payers .

 

[plumber_UK]

This is a hard one especially if you employ somebody.
I will probably get slatted for an opinion like this ......But I would simply temporarily sack the bad payers , dont tell them . When they ring up again say you are not interested as you only want good prompt payers, call their bluff , if they use you again they will probably pay promptly , if they don't, sack them. We all work hard enough the last thing we want is crap payers .

I 100% agree
I had around 10 guys working for me a couple of years back and the late payers nearly sent me under. With all the stress i decided to downsize. Its just me now but i do need another plumber but things like this just put me off taking anyone on.

 

[hammers4spanner]

The late pay customers i get are off flaming checkatrade every customer on that site has been a pain one way or another

 

[plumber_UK]

Has anyone tried taking payments by card ?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

The late pay customers i get are off flaming checkatrade every customer on that site has been a pain one way or another

thats the funs of them type of sites hammers

 

[Best]

Truth is, once you have their job finished they can decide to late pay you and there's nothing you can do about it, despite if you asked verbally or had it in typed lettering the size of an A4 page asking for immediate payment.
Different thing entirely if you walk out through Tesco doors with a trolley of goods while promising to pay next week, - that's theft!
People promising to pay you for all your supplied materials and time and then not bothering to pay for a few weeks, - that's just a debt owed to you. Sadly that's the law.
What can you do but wait on your money? Taking it to small claims will often just result in slower payment, and that's if you win.
Electricity bill, Gas bill, Mortgage /Rent bill, Car HP, Wife's and kids Christmas presents, Christmas booze are all more important than the plumbers one off bill. He can wait to end of January

 

[hammers4spanner]

Truth is, once you have their job finished they can decide to late pay you and there's nothing you can do about it, despite if you asked verbally or had it in typed lettering the size of an A4 page asking for immediate payment.
Different thing entirely if you walk out through Tesco doors with a trolley of goods while promising to pay next week, - that's theft!
People promising to pay you for all your supplied materials and time and then not bothering to pay for a few weeks, - that's just a debt owed to you. Sadly that's the law.
What can you do but wait on your money? Taking it to small claims will often just result in slower payment, and that's if you win.
Electricity bill, Gas bill, Morgage/Rent bill, Car HP, Wife's and kids Christmas presents, Christmas booze are all more important than the plumbers one off bill

This is very true ,

The law is a sham when it comes small business and late payments .Got a good bud of mine who is a lawyer deals with this all the time basically said if someone don't wanna pay they won't. Most will pay after threat of court but some won't give a monkeys and still won't pay there after