Ensure Your Business is Paid On Time Every Time

One of the biggest challenges you are likely to face as a small business owner is managing your cash flow. Ensuring that clients pay in full and in time is a particularly big challenge for many companies, but it needn’t be a huge headache! Below you will find some simple tips to ensure that you are paid on time every time.

Set out your expectations

Before you even think about doing business with a client, set out your expectations for payment, including a final date for said payment and any late fees you will be charging. If they know what to expect right from the off, they’re much more likely to comply.

Use software

These days, there are numerous software packages from automatic invoice generation apps to hospital contract management software that will calculate bills highlight non-payers, and send out invoices when they’re due, that you should definitely be making use of them if you want to get paid on time every time. Humans are fallible, but software rarely and it will ensure that things run as smoothly as possible in the payments department.

Keep records

It’s really important that you always keep records of any payments due because if you don’t it’s easy for you to forget about them and for invoices not to go out or for clients to “forget” to pay you or enter into a dispute about how much you owe. If you have a paper trail, all of these things will be far less likely to happen.

Send reminders

After sending out your invoice, it may be a good idea to follow up with a reminder just because paperwork can often be filed and forgotten about if it is not acted on immediately and a quick follow-up email can be enough to get things moving again and ensure that you are paid on time.

Offer an incentive

If you have clients who are known for not paying up on time, one thing you might consider doing to secure your payment after all, is to offer them an incentive for paying up when they should. This could be a five percent reduction in the bill or a small amount off the bill for the next project - as long as it is something they are likely to want, chances are they will settle the bill once it has been offered.

Issue a letter before action

If a client absolutely won’t pay up, then issuing a letter before action is often all that it takes to get them into action. No one wants to end up with legal action being taken against them so although this is a pretty drastic step, it is definitely something you should consider if things get to that point.

Your cash flow is vital to the success of your business, so be as proactive as possible when it comes to getting the money you were owed when you are owed it and ensure your business doesn’t go bust due to poor paying clients.