How to get paid faster

There are a surprising number of ways that can help you to receive payment more promptly. The following article outlines some of the ideas to try.

The general principle if you want to get paid as fast as possible, is to raise all of your invoices quickly. That’s pretty obvious. But it goes further than that. The customer will be most ready to pay the bill when the work has just finished. The longer you leave it, the higher the risk of delay.

When you send an invoice, there should be no surprises. If there are additional charges, the customer should already be aware of them. To help this, your terms and conditions must make it clear that you can’t be held responsible for anything which couldn’t reasonably have been foreseen. For instance, if the wall where you were hanging the boiler started crumbling, that would be an extra charge.

The more your customers are left delighted, the more likely they are to pay quickly. Of course, there will be the odd painful exception. But it’s the unhappy customers who are most likely to drag their feet and dispute the bill.

If the customer is late paying, follow up straight after they get beyond their due date. Don’t let them think that you don’t care.

Make it as easy as possible for your customers to pay. Producing an invoice from an app on site just as you complete the job enables them to pay by bank transfer or card right there and then. The easier it is, the quicker you are likely to be paid. Right after the job completes is always the best time.