Almost every invoice says something about payment terms. Almost every business has receivables well past those terms. Clearly the words on the invoice are not doing the work.
Why the term gets ignored
Because it appears for the first time on the invoice, after the work is done, when the customer has already decided internally how they pay people.
A term agreed before the work starts is part of the deal. A term printed after the work is a preference.
What makes a term stick
Say it before you start. In the quotation, in the same breath as the price.
Be specific about the date. "30 days" means different things to different people. "Due on 15 September" does not.
Name what happens after. Not a threat, just a stated consequence, whether that is interest, held delivery, or a pause on further work. A term with nothing behind it is a wish.
Send the invoice to the person who pays it. A remarkable number of overdue invoices are sitting with somebody who cannot authorise anything.
Shorter is usually better than tighter
Fifteen days that everybody honours is worth more than thirty days that slips to fifty. Shorter terms are also easier to enforce, because chasing on day twenty feels reasonable in a way that chasing on day forty-five does not.
Then follow up on schedule
A term only works if somebody notices when it passes. A polite reminder three days before the due date does more for collection than any amount of chasing afterwards, because it catches the invoices that were simply forgotten rather than refused.
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