![]() Assess interest or late fees on unpaid invoicesīecause you extend credit to customers, you can charge late fees or interest when invoices go unpaid. Depending on the situation, you could also consider offering to accept the payment in installments to ensure that you can collect the debt and increase cash flow in the short term. If this doesn’t work, explain the consequences of nonpayment for your particular business courteously-whether it’s discontinuing their service or reporting their delinquency to a credit-rating organization. Sometimes a phone call or resending the invoice is enough to secure payment. The first step is to make contact with the customer. Fostering open communication with your customers can save you from hefty legal fees and court dates in the end. How can you convince them to make a payment? Start with these four steps below, and remember that nurturing the relationship with your customer is of the utmost importance. It’s difficult when a customer misses a payment-especially when it’s one you have grown to trust. Getting a Client to Pay an Invoice after Nonpayment You can then begin to mitigate your A/R risk by following cash flow best practices. You can make non-payment less likely to happen by answering these questions and being proactive. Did you outline your deliverables and payment terms?.Did you have systems in place to prevent loss or limit your exposure?.Begin by asking yourself the following questions: In order to avoid non-payment from the start, it helps to understand a little more about how the event occurred in the first place. These indicators are all important, of course, but don’t be surprised if payment delays still occur. Your sales team may have checked the credit history of the customer elsewhere and feels confident that the customer is financially robust. Perhaps the account has assured you that a budget is in place and there is no danger of nonpayment. You may believe that because the organization is large, it will pay your invoice to protect its reputation. How to Avoid Non-Payments from the StartĪfter a few years of trading with a given customer, you may feel that the relationship is great and you can trust your customer, so these problems will not affect you. So what do you do when a customer doesn’t pay? Even ignoring a relatively-small invoice can hurt your bottom line-especially if you depend on receiving a payment in time to pay expenses or if you rely disproportionately on a small number of clients, AKA “ concentration risk.” Non-payments can actually add up and damage your company on multiple fronts. Restoring optimism and trust is an ongoing challenge. Damage to companies caused by non-payment of invoices is never solved overnight. ![]() ![]() Suffering a non-payment event-whether it’s your first, the most recent, or the most significant-can feel overwhelming. However, how can you be sure that the customer, after all your hard work, will pay? What can you do to get a client to pay an invoice-and pay on time? Very few are lucky enough to have new prospects lining up at the door. Finding, getting, and keeping customers is the challenge every business faces.
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