Three years of letting a client pay late finally clicked last week

I had this one commercial client who always paid 45 days late, and I just let it happen because I liked the work. Last week I was sitting in their lobby waiting for a check, watching the receptionist scroll on her phone, and it hit me that I was the only one stressed about it. I finally sent a note saying new terms are net 15 or 2% interest after that, and the owner called me an hour later to apologize and set up a payment plan. Has anyone else had a moment where you just snapped and changed how you do billing?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray5628d ago

Betting they never stress about their own car payment being late either, right?

the_felix8d ago

Nah, @ray562, businesses screw people over all the time. Why should they get special treatment?

casey3428d ago

Oh please! Businesses take all the risk. They invest their own money and time to make things work. When a plumber fixes your leaky pipe at 2am, you don't get to pay them late just because your paycheck didn't come through. Small businesses especially - they can't just absorb late payments like big corporations can. A single unpaid invoice can mean they can't pay their own supplier or their kid's soccer fees. Stop acting like business owners are all rich guys in suits. Most of them are regular people just trying to survive.