Too regular ?

[dazmond]

Remember every job costs US money to drive there,clean their windows and chase payments....

We need to get paid on a regular basis or we go to the wall....simple as that.

 

[spruce]

Remember every job costs US money to drive there,clean their windows and chase payments....

We need to get paid on a regular basis or we go to the wall....simple as that.

I agree. One bad year, each customer cost me £2.45 to clean in expenses alone to rock up for the clean, which didn't account for time and wage costs.

But some customers put their proverbial ostriches' head in the sand (they don't) and pretend they don't have a problem until the sky falls down on them.

It's only when the debts mount up that they go into panic mode. It's usually too late then. Then are those who just know how to play the financial system. We don't want those as customers, either. The way we find them is when they don't pay us. We don't get caught a second time with them. We don't do credit checks on each new customer.

I dumped a slow payer recently. I discovered she had registered herself as a limited company. I'm not too sure how bad debt would work in her case, so I decided to end our business relationship. (The director/s of limited companies aren't personally responsible for the debt they create; their business is. How that would apply to a named individual as a limited company, I don't know. But I'm not going to find out after I'm a clean down.)

This is why we don't clean again until payment has been received for the previous clean. If they take time to pay for their clean, then I get nervous. At one time we went to 2 cleans, but not now. I have only ever had one customer phone me and cancel, advising that she is skint. So many others make some stupid excuse blaming me for the payment delay.

Our bad debt is extremely low every year. I'm not going to lose sleep over the odd non-payment. If someone has messed us around with payment, I will suck it up until payment comes. Then I will drop them.