[pianotech] slow paying customers revisited

[Phil @ EMV Keys]

Hi Shawn

I'm new to piano tuning but this is my 3rd small business. For my 
individual customers it's always pay on the spot.

For institutional customers I expect 30 days as normal. Why? The person 
requesting my services needs to issue a requisition to the purchasing 
dept. to generate a purchase order, whether you ever see the purchase 
order or not. I won't make an appointment with an institution until I 
have a copy of the purchase order. Once the service is rendered I submit 
an invoice which they need to pass through their accounts payable dept. 
to authorize a cheque to be sent by some other office personnel. Because 
my invoice is not the only one they'll be dealing with in a given 
period, it will be processed with a bunch of others at a regular time 
which the AP dept. (which may also be the Accounts receivable and 
purchasing dept.) may have scheduled maybe twice or thrice a week among 
their other duties. Once all that is done the cheques are stuffed into 
envelopes and addressed by perhaps another person, and finally put into 
the mail basket for daily delivery to the post office. This can easily 
eat up the business week following their receipt of my invoice. Add a 
few more days in the mail, plus my preparing an invoice and mailing it 
to them takes up a few days. Receiving a cheque the third week following 
service rendered is not at all unusual when dealing with an organization 
rather than an individual.

I have found that if I leave an invoice when the service is rendered, 
it's more likely to get lost, or left on someone's desk or otherwise 
delayed. I always mail an invoice, referenced to their purchase order.

It's been my practice to ask the organization up front what payment 
interval is reasonable for them and then hold them to their word. For 
me, so far so good.

I'm not excusing slow payers, but personally, I don't think it's 
reasonable to expect payment inside 14 days. Inside 30 days is quite 
reasonable.

cheers,

Phil



Shawn Brock wrote:
> List,
>
> I know we had a thread going not long ago on slow paying customers (snip)

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