Put a charge for late payment or offer a discount for payment at the time of work... David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA 94044 Original message From: "Marc Mailhot" To: pianotech at ptg.org Received: 3/4/2009 7:53:58 AM Subject: [pianotech] Slow Paying Customers Hi everyone. I have two Nursing Homes I do semi-annually that are 30 days...regardless of how fast my paperwork is submitted. Part of doing biz I guess...and I've learned to live with it. Marc P. Mailhot Marco Polo Music Westbrook, ME USA The Love You Take is Equal to the Love You Make... The Beatles/Abbey Road (The End)...1969 --- On Wed, 3/4/09, pianotech-request at ptg.org <pianotech-request at ptg.org> wrote: From: pianotech-request at ptg.org <pianotech-request at ptg.org> Subject: pianotech Digest, Vol 5, Issue 39 To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 10:26 AM Send pianotech mailing list submissions to pianotech at ptg.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://ptg.org/mailman/listinfo/pianotech_ptg.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to pianotech-request at ptg.org You can reach the person managing the list at pianotech-owner at ptg.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of pianotech digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: slow paying customers revisited (John Ross) 2. Re: slow paying customers revisited (Dean May) 3. OT vacuum press/vacuum clamping system (Shawn Brock) I gave up years ago trying to get them to pay faster. I appreciate their business. I just keep more on hand for the bills. It is money I can't spend, but one of my costs of doing business. I always meant to say 2% per month on accounts after 10 days. Never got around to it as I figured it was more trouble than it was worth. It might get them thinking though, if they thought it was going to cost them. Since '75, I have never let it bother me. It does seem that the ones that have it, are the slowest to pay. i.e. lawyers, doctors etc. John Ross ----- Original Message ----- From: Shawn Brock To: Pianotech List Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 10:28 AM Subject: [pianotech] slow paying customers revisited List, I know we had a thread going not long ago on slow paying customers and last year I had complained a little about some of the churches I serve. I have some questions that I would like to gather some answers for and some statements that may or may not be out of line (you tell me.) First: how long do you give commercial/institutional/church customers to pay the balance for your services? For most of these types of account I have been giving 14 days from the date of service to the date of payment due. That seems more than reasonable to me, after all the phone company and other utilities don't give you that much time from when you receive the bill to the due date. Perhaps I'm being unreasonable though? I have 2 churches that are my slowest paying customers, and they are maybe the richest churches I work for. Each has 5 pianos that get regular service and both are slow paying. Its funny... It seems that the people with the least amount of money are the first to pay, I find that those folks are the ones who have a check waiting on the date of the appointment... So back to the topic at hand. I had cut the slow payers back to a 10 day due date or a "payment due on date of service" instead of the 14 days I had been giving them. That hasn't seemed to help! Each time I work for them it never fails that I have to make numerous phone calls to get my money. They both have a long list of excuses that they run through (the accountant is on vacation, the accountant is sick, we misplaced the invoice, we thought we had 30 days, a check should have been in the mail to you, I will have to check with someone and get back with you) and so on. I could have understood this once or even more, but this is every time I deal with these people and I'm sick of it! These 2 churches were served in a 2 day period and now they are both past due by more than a week. I wouldn't be as quick to complain but we are talking over $1000 that is due to me and I could use it. Last I checked I still have bills to pay. So what's the answer? Maybe I should charge more and give them a discount if they pay on time? Or is that to complicated? Maybe I should just stop working for them? Damn! I'm sorry but when it takes people more than 30 days to pay that seems a little excessive to me. Its not like these people even have to pay taxes... One thing that fuels my fire is these are the same people who will call you and want you to come out to tune for a concert the same day, or the next day. They new about the concert months ago but didn't have the foresight to schedule the tuning. And then... They show you gratitude by paying in a month and a half! "We need you now and we will pay you when ever we want." Well, that's how it seems any how. Come on people and share your wisdom with me. I could use it... After all we are not just talking about $1000 which is in my opinion still a substantial amount of money. We are talking about 2 days worth of work and we are also talking about principles. If they couldn't afford to pay it would be different but at a glance you know that you are just getting kicked around. All comments and ideas are appreciated. Regards, Shawn Brock, RPT I would recommend you just relax. You know they are going to pay, and it sounds like a pretty good account to have otherwise. It’s sometimes hard to break free from the slave mentality of hand to mouth, i.e., I need this money today to pay my overdue gas bill. But in this business we really do need to have some cash flow cushion so immediate payment isn’t so urgent for us. When your big payment does finally come in you can consider it a bonus. Usually in a small church one person takes care of all the bills and signing the checks. But in a big church frequently you’ll have office staff preparing the checks and a trustee stopping by once or twice a month to countersign the checks. Dean Dean May cell 812.239.3359 PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 Terre Haute IN 47802 From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Shawn Brock Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 9:28 AM To: Pianotech List Subject: [pianotech] slow paying customers revisited List, I know we had a thread going not long ago on slow paying customers and last year I had complained a little about some of the churches I serve. I have some questions that I would like to gather some answers for and some statements that may or may not be out of line (you tell me.) First: how long do you give commercial/institutional/church customers to pay the balance for your services? For most of these types of account I have been giving 14 days from the date of service to the date of payment due. That seems more than reasonable to me, after all the phone company and other utilities don't give you that much time from when you receive the bill to the due date. Perhaps I'm being unreasonable though? I have 2 churches that are my slowest paying customers, and they are maybe the richest churches I work for. Each has 5 pianos that get regular service and both are slow paying. Its funny... It seems that the people with the least amount of money are the first to pay, I find that those folks are the ones who have a check waiting on the date of the appointment... So back to the topic at hand. I had cut the slow payers back to a 10 day due date or a "payment due on date of service" instead of the 14 days I had been giving them. That hasn't seemed to help! Each time I work for them it never fails that I have to make numerous phone calls to get my money. They both have a long list of excuses that they run through (the accountant is on vacation, the accountant is sick, we misplaced the invoice, we thought we had 30 days, a check should have been in the mail to you, I will have to check with someone and get back with you) and so on. I could have understood this once or even more, but this is every time I deal with these people and I'm sick of it! These 2 churches were served in a 2 day period and now they are both past due by more than a week. I wouldn't be as quick to complain but we are talking over $1000 that is due to me and I could use it. Last I checked I still have bills to pay. So what's the answer? Maybe I should charge more and give them a discount if they pay on time? Or is that to complicated? Maybe I should just stop working for them? Damn! I'm sorry but when it takes people more than 30 days to pay that seems a little excessive to me. Its not like these people even have to pay taxes... One thing that fuels my fire is these are the same people who will call you and want you to come out to tune for a concert the same day, or the next day. They new about the concert months ago but didn't have the foresight to schedule the tuning. And then... They show you gratitude by paying in a month and a half! "We need you now and we will pay you when ever we want." Well, that's how it seems any how. Come on people and share your wisdom with me. I could use it... After all we are not just talking about $1000 which is in my opinion still a substantial amount of money. We are talking about 2 days worth of work and we are also talking about principles. If they couldn't afford to pay it would be different but at a glance you know that you are just getting kicked around. All comments and ideas are appreciated. Regards, Shawn Brock, RPT List, do any of you have experience with the use of a vacuum press/clamping system? I am in the market for this product but am having a hard time finding someone who sells it in the Cincinnati area. More accurately, I'm having a hard time finding someone who knows if they stock them. You know how it goes... Maybe they have it and don't know if they do but they assume they don't because you want it... I am going to get back to my old hobby of building guitars so I need a system that will handle something 15 wide and maybe 22 long. I found one that has a capacity of 14 wide and 47 long but those folks tell me they can't order anything bigger. I would rather shop for one in store than online so I can grope the product in person. I'm not trying to hide my ignorance on vacuum press's, I don't know hardly anything about them so... I am planning to build either a double top guitar with a nomex core or a lattice braced top using balsa wood and carbon fiber. If you haven't got a chance to hear classical guitars built in this modern fashion you should check them out. The volume is tremendous! You can't even compare them to traditional construction as far as volume goes. The tone is another matter though. You can check out my page on myspace to hear traditional Spanish construction next to this new sound offered by these guitars. I have 4 songs posted at this time and I used 3 different guitars. Fields of Gold uses a traditional Classical Spanish made guitar with Spruce top, The Call is a lattice top guitar and New Moon and Golpe were played on a Spanish Flamenco guitar with a Seder top. I wonder if any of these new ideas could become useful in piano soundboard construction? www.myspace.com/shawnbrockmusic Regards, Shawn Brock, RPT _______________________________________________ pianotech mailing list pianotech at ptg.org http://ptg.org/mailman/listinfo/pianotech_ptg.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090304/71dd50ec/attachment-0001.html>
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