I have had the USPS mess things up for me numerous times.

If I mail anything of ANY consequence, I FedEx it. Worth every penny.

When I've had fights with my homeowners assoc. years ago (they changed management companies several times with new phone numbers and addresses and didn't tell anyone where to send the checks), they'd take my most recent payment and apply it to "past due" bills, then tell me my most recent one was short by that much. I think if you had a contract rider or billing policy that said "All payments received will first be applied to oldest outstanding invoice," then you could probably skip the discounts.

At my current company, we require a credit card number and auth. form signed before we'll do work for someone. If they don't send in payment, we charge the credit card. If they dispute the charges, we can easily document the qork request they sent in and the work we did for them. Ironically, the fed. gov't. is probably our fastest and most reliable paying client.

20% of my customers pay well (pre 30 day mark)

30% around the 30 day mark (plus 10 days)

40 % are around the 46-60 day mark:mad:


10 percent are in the 65-120 range:eek:

we send out late notices via e-mail and FAX, A guy in the +60 day mark yelled @ my wife for a late notice via fax, one of his employees saw it

Joanna told him "well if you paid your bill on time I wouldn't have to fax you"

sad thing is I get alot of the small orders that are the late pays - the oldest invoice that I have is for 49.xx !

the longest that I ever had 280 days late was for $100 ! wtf Yes, hell will freeze over prior to me shipping anything to theese azzclowns again

If she has her own postage meter she can run it through today and not physically mail it till whenever she feels like it.

be glad you don't have to deal with autrozone...they demand net 365 to start with and after a whlie it is net 500. They return over half what they buy too...
Napa has the similar deal, net 365. They demand unconditional returns, we pay shipping both directions AND they FINE us when some thing is not "conforming " to their stanndards...:eek:

Brutal.

needless to say when I get a call from AZ..I just say Gooday..out of stock!

stop using cheques and tell them to wire money
100% of Europe does it that way
no more transport problems, delays, bouncing cheques, waiting for cheques to clear, etc etc

i still don't understand why the US still uses an antique method to transfer funds

Europe, send bill,
bill goes to finance dept
(let's for one instance exclude the option of stalling on their end, that happens here just as well)
finance controller fires up his pc, logs the crap in their accounting software, clicks a button "pay the buggers" and the accounting software just links up to the bank, and wires the money
if it's same country, in most cases, the money will be on the account within 30 minutes, if it's within the EU , usually within 2 days (legally the limit is 4 working days, but it's usually faster), or instantly if it's a priority transfer ( costs about 4.5 euro's within the EU)

even sending bills these days is moving towards electronic form
soon there won't be any paper/envelope required, many utilities companies are already doing this right now


seriously, cheques is like using clay tablets with hieroglyphs to pay for your groceries

Most large US companies do use wire transfers as you describe, but that would not be typical of smaller businesses imo. Don't even begin to try to understand why we do some of the things we do...heck, WE don't even understand :)

BTDT, businesses where it is customary to provide services, then send invoices, can be tough.

People just don't like paying for things they received in the past, even if the past was only 30 days ago.

I found the best way to get payment was the "continuing need" theory. People will pay last month's invoice if they need you to do things for them this month. (Course may not work in all industries).

just add it to the conditions "payable by wire transfer"
in Europe cheques are about to be discontinued completely
and banks in the last 15 years (especially since computers and internetbanking grew) charged increasingly more and more for use of cheques , to force people into phasing out

Stijn,

I read an article a while back about how advanced Europe was in this regard. Even on the "public" level in paying utility bills. Even though we can do this in the U.S. the payments are not in real-time like they are in Europe.

I work for the builder and most of the houses are still under construction. So, by law, I have the right to lien the property in order to get paid. If subcontractors did not have that they would never get paid. Many builders play games and when the economy slows like it did here many do not stay in business long, they are using the money from the next house to pay for the last.

Must be the company I work for. Our accounting dept changed all PO's to net 45 a while back. Some b!tched, but most realized they're lucky to get paid in 90 days anyway so what's the difference. BTW, this is Fortune 500 company :rolleyes:.

I work for a private engineering consulting firm. Our client is a public agency. Our task is to handle the construction contractors who are signatory to the public agency's construction contracts. So......I look over one shoulder and I see the public agency. I look over the other shoulder and I see the private construction contractors. Guess where I see the least responsible behavior? Guess who plays all the games? Guess whose agenda is to gouge others and hide the information they might need? And guess whose commitments are reliable met, and whose cards are on the table for anyone who cares to check on them?

Heck, if the construction contractors would do, say, 80% of the things they promise to do, in writing, this client would not need me. The public agency, on the other hand, pays its bills on time, satisfies each and every one of its commitment quickly without need for reminders and provides the contractors with the administrative and managerial help they so clearly appear to need desperately. Yeah, you guys can pretend all you want that gubmit is the problem but from where I sit, the view is crystal clear. Construction contractors. Just one step up from used car dealers. Or maybe they are tied.

i guess the banks got you by the balls in the US
over here a lot is regulated by the gouvernement as to what banks can or cant' do, even what they have to do in terms of service, they can't charge what they want for their service, eg , they can't charge per transaction for private persons

just recently they had to make all EU transactions free for private persons
if done via proper EU bank codes (IBAN&BIC BIC is bank code, IBAN is a combined number of bankaccount number and then something of the local bank)eg, not just by the number in the recipients country

i believe next year they are harmonising all cashmachines and shop systems so any regular bank card, works in any EU country, any shop ( at the moment there are several systems to which some banks are member off one of which is called MAESTRO. but not all shop payment terminals take it,
note, this is completely aside from VISA, MC , AMEX, which technically does not go via the local banks, but via the CC companies

another step is they are restructuring , all bank number formats across the EU, so soon you'll be able to wire money to any old EU country, simply by the bank account number , at which time IBAN&BIC will become obsolete


i think this is one case where "government" has show that it can make big differences, but i think the US system of lobbyists, and interest groups have to much of a hold of politics to let any form of govermenent butt in with it's way of doing things... no? and those in power, senate, congress, whitehouse, those really couldn't care less about it, while i think they should, because it allows for a more dynamic economy, and i think y'all could use some of that at the moment ( and even if not now, i think any time is a good time for good solutions that improve economy )

This stuff has nothing to do with government. The US government, for all its ills, does pay vendors on time. They really are good about this. But it has nothing to do with this other stuff between private parties.

i was referring to getting bank transfers instated as the standard way of making money go from point A to point B , doing away with cheques , something pretty much antique in the rest of the world...

It has everything to do with gubmit. Gubmit is the structure of what is permissible and what is not. The very liberal (you guys pretend it's "socialism") systems in Europe, nicely outlined by Stijn, are a good example. The reason we have so many way of bilking money from each other here, is because we (you, not me) think that's a good idea. Since millions of dollars are being squeezed from personal bank customers in transaction fees alone, you guys think that's economic progress. I think it's regressive. Regulation of banks and telecommunications companies alone could probably save the ordinary citizen more money than all the tax cuts you can dream up. The system can work for citizens, and in European companies that's what happens. By contrast, America has chosen to place the corporation in a superior position to citizens. That's a big problem, and then it's going to become a huge problem, and then it's going to bring this nation down. Unless we wise up.

In the US, if a client totally stiffs you and you don't care about ever doing business with them again, send them and the IRS a 1099 gift form and let the IRS go after them for the taxes.