Business

Invoices Overdue? Here’s How to Handle Late-Payers

Written by Chloe Harwood

One of the toughest things to deal with when you run your own business or work as a freelancer is overdue invoices. There are just some clients who can’t or won’t pay on time, and they don’t seem to realize or care that by not paying you, they are putting your livelihood at risk and making it difficult for you to pay your own bills or put food on your family’s table.

Luckily, there are some strategies you can employ to deal with the late-paying problem. Check out these types of late-payers and how to handle them:

Regular Late-Payers

A lot of businesses will come into contact with what are commonly known as chronic late-payers. These are people who you can guarantee will pay you eventually, but who will pretty much never make an effort to actually pay you on time, throwing your cash flow out of whack and making things more difficult for you than they need to be.

One thing you can do to deal with these late-payers is to sell your invoices over at factoringcompany.net. You’ll get up to 90 percent of the invoice’s value and boost your cash flow right now when you need it.

Another way of dealing with the regular late-payers is to keep on their backs about the payment. Obviously, you don’t want to harass your clients, but a quick phone call n the day the invoice is due followed by regular phone calls or emails after that if they don’t pay up, can push them into action pretty fast.

The One’s Who Lose Your Payment Details

If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ll have encountered the late-payers who don’t pay in time simply because they misplace your payment details and are therefore unable to do so. The easiest way to deal with them is to find an invoice template at create.onlineinvoices.com, which includes bank details and be sure to include you details in all correspondence. That way, they will always one able to pay up fast without having to get in touch with someone on your end first.

The Can’t Afford It’s

Everyone has cash flow problems from time to time, which means there are always going to be occasions when your clients simply cannot afford to pay you when your invoice is due.

One way to deal with this is to offer more payment options, like credit cards, if you currently only accept cash, to give them another more immediate way to pay.

Of course, sometimes it’s a good idea to simply offer them a payment extension if they’re generally a good client because a little bit of goodwill now will strengthen your relationships and ensure repeat business.

The Won’t Pays

If a client simply decides that they don’t want to pay you despite you delivering on everything you agreed upon, calling them often might just wear them down, but if it doesn’t threatening legal action usually does the trick. Sadly,however, sometimes you just have to give up and let go, especially if a client goes AWOL and it’s no longer worth your time to force payment!

About the author

Chloe Harwood