Whether you work in the creative industry or have a gadget store, it’s not easy to avoid the “elephant in the room.” There are multiple mistakes even experienced entrepreneurs make while setting up their business practices and culture, which makes it harder for them to recover payments from their clients. For an entrepreneur, the amount earned from their client’s end is their lifeblood.
Client negligence can even halt the business initially, as client payments fund the company’s future bills. The Internet has grown so far that people use multiple methods to approach their clients globally. However, not keeping a secure payment method has caught our attention regarding the missed or late payments from the clients’ end.
However, clients, especially those using the Internet as their only source of communication, are skeptical about paying in advance. Therefore, expecting them to pay a complete upfront payment is not possible at an initial level when you have just started your business. Often, clients make unnecessary delays or deductions after delivering their desired product or services, which is accounted for as a bad debt account for entrepreneurs.
If you are struggling with this issue, here is some practical advice to help you recover your stuck money and even help you avoid such scenarios.
Tips to Secure Your Payments
Choose the right client.
Your ideal situation is when you only attract paying clients. Evaluate the clients as they approach you for your work, as this will make it easier for you to shortlist the clients you want to work for and benefit from. Here are a few tips for choosing a suitable client base quickly.
Raise your worth
Selling a product or offering a service? Keep your rates at or above the market price. Selling services at a price that is too low will make you more approachable to frauds or less ethical clients. However, the people who are satisfied with your quality of work will be willing to pay you the average market price or even a premium price for your quality.
Design a proper payment policy in advance
Once you have a proper payment policy for your product or service, the client will understand your fixed payment policy. This will depict your professional attitude toward your work. Your professional policy should cover all of your best practices as it will prevent fraudulent cases. The policy should include the following:
- Your invoice duration, such as weekly/bi-monthly/monthly, or project-wise
- Your terms of payments
- Penalties in case of any late payment
- Your detailed rate structure includes the basic per-hour rate and monthly rate of that project
- Payment methods that are acceptable to you
- How you will handle late payments
- How your company will recover missed payments from the client
Identify your clients while they talk
Don’t waste time after investing your work and money in providing the customer’s desired product. Dealing with late or missed payments later is a frustrating experience. Therefore, one should identify the seriousness of their clients before they start to work on their project.
- Avoid bargaining
- Understand the client’s psychology and their potential to understand you
- Get a contract signed, even for smaller payments/projects
- Look for clients through references, as this will be a more solid and secure source
Always maintain your records
Bookkeeping is a valuable and necessary part of an entrepreneurial business. The most successful strategies for keeping your payments secure are recording all your transactions, bad debts, and accounts receivables in detailed records that can help you later analyze how much work you are providing and how much you are owed.
Be serious about getting paid
Sitting and waiting for payments will not solve your problem. It would help if you proactively sought all your expected payments personally.
- Contact the clients as soon as the deadline has passed
- Start charging interest on late payments
- Keep nudging the client, even after a month or so
- Send a demand letter to the client’s address
- If you are still unsuccessful, contact a collections agency
Be ready to do something
Starting your own business is not a cup of tea; managing it is much more challenging. Dealing with your employees, as well as your customers, is a difficult task in itself. You should not wait for the result if a client is missing or canceling the payment. Instead, you should adopt a proactive approach to do something regarding the issue.
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