Todays Most pressing issues

[bohiaa]

hey all:


I was wondering if you guys are having some of the issues I am having ?

It seems with the state of the union that getting paid is an on going issue,

just courious on how some of you handle this ?

[Goldendog]

This is the first year it has been a problem for me. I just suspended service on a few this week for non-payment. Don't want to lose the business but if they are not paying it doesn't matter anyway.

[Cat 320D LRR]

had 1 customer who i had a problem with owed me for 10 cuts and mulching and it was a large amount of money. I billed him first for the mulch then mulch and 2 cuts then 4 and so on till i got to 10 and never got any money. I gave him a call and he never answer and left another bill and a voicemail saying if he need to do payments i could make it work and also had that on my flyer and never heard back so i dropped one more bill off with a notice that if i did not get my money per our contract the service would be canceled. Never heard from him and am in the process with my lawyer of working it out but he had another landscaper cut for him a couple times he that landscaper dropped the lawn to cause he never got paid

[tlc1994]

All you can do is be clear in the beginning that there are a list of actions that will occur if payment is not made, starting with suspension of service and afterwards legal actions. If you are doing a big project you have got to get a deposit to cover yourself. One thing that some companies do is claim possession of any installations under payment is fulfilled, meaning they will take trees, shrubs, mulch, etc, right out of the customer`s yard. That tends to be effective.
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[PlantscapeSolutions]

If your bread and butter is middle class homes your always going to have more problems. One lady years ago had claimed it was the postal services fault and that the check had been sent several times. I showed up unannounced one evening and caught her totally off guard and she had no prefabricated excuse to use. Got paid.

I had another guy who hadn't been a customer for six months and owed money. He was a Time Warner Cable executive. One of the emails I sent came back with an automated response to contact his assistant with any issues because he was out of the office. I sent his assistant the past due invoice and embarrassed the hell out of him. Got paid as well.

I was doing work for two brothers who were home builders and they ran up a bill of a few grand and started the whole checks in the mail crap for weeks and months. I took care of their million dollar homes but they paid with a company check and told me not to put either of their address's on the bills. I politely mention I just want to get paid and that a lien would be the last thing I would want to have to do. That got me one payment and then nothing. No emails returned, or calls.

I sent them an email saying I though the IRS would find the billing of their personal homes using company checks very interesting. I got a calls less then a minute later with a song and dance and was fully paid by the end of the week.

I had a developer give me the checks in the mail, somebody died and I had to leave town, I had to have an operation and every sorry azz excuse you could think of. I ratcheted up the pressure little by little and got some payments. Even gave the SOB a discount just to settle the whole matter but things kept dragging on. The guy had been a customer for six months and I had never even met the guy.

Finally I bluffed hard and told him to forget the discount that I'm in the process of filling out small claims paperwork and that I would finally get a chance to meet him in person. I told him I was worn out by all the running around excuse BS and that he could now pay me the amount he owes plus several times more in legal fee's. That got me paid that same week after playing cat and mouse for six months.

In general it's good to really analyze your clients so you will know what buttons to push and how hard to push if they start giving you the run around. It's almost never worth going to court over a grand or so but it's free to put on your best poker face and bluff you delinquent clients into paying their bill.

[bohiaa]

Originally Posted by PlantscapeSolutions

If your bread and butter is middle class homes your always going to have more problems. One lady years ago had claimed it was the postal services fault and that the check had been sent several times. I showed up unannounced one evening and caught her totally off guard and she had no prefabricated excuse to use. Got paid.

I had another guy who hadn't been a customer for six months and owed money. He was a Time Warner Cable executive. One of the emails I sent came back with an automated response to contact his assistant with any issues because he was out of the office. I sent his assistant the past due invoice and embarrassed the hell out of him. Got paid as well.

I was doing work for two brothers who were home builders and they ran up a bill of a few grand and started the whole checks in the mail crap for weeks and months. I took care of their million dollar homes but they paid with a company check and told me not to put either of their address's on the bills. I politely mention I just want to get paid and that a lien would be the last thing I would want to have to do. That got me one payment and then nothing. No emails returned, or calls.

I sent them an email saying I though the IRS would find the billing of their personal homes using company checks very interesting. I got a calls less then a minute later with a song and dance and was fully paid by the end of the week.

I had a developer give me the checks in the mail, somebody died and I had to leave town, I had to have an operation and every sorry azz excuse you could think of. I ratcheted up the pressure little by little and got some payments. Even gave the SOB a discount just to settle the whole matter but things kept dragging on. The guy had been a customer for six months and I had never even met the guy.

Finally I bluffed hard and told him to forget the discount that I'm in the process of filling out small claims paperwork and that I would finally get a chance to meet him in person. I told him I was worn out by all the running around excuse BS and that he could now pay me the amount he owes plus several times more in legal fee's. That got me paid that same week after playing cat and mouse for six months.

In general it's good to really analyze your clients so you will know what buttons to push and how hard to push if they start giving you the run around. It's almost never worth going to court over a grand or so but it's free to put on your best poker face and bluff you delinquent clients into paying their bill.

Yea. Like you I feel as if I have herd them all.....

I am noticing some of my high end customers are late and one that's almost 90 days late, to be honest I'm SICK of it. We have some farms tht noone lives at. and the owner is about 50 to 75 miles away. I'm sending out a letter today. informing her were suspending services. and from now own it will be a PRE PAY.....

I like the knocking on doors thing. but I feel as if I shouldn't have to beg for my moeny........ " Beg, term that I use " I think I'm going to start including a 35.00 fee to reinvoice.....

[mdvaden]

I have no payment problems at all.

But all my work is one-time stuff, not monthly accounts.

Calls come my way because people know they have the money in advance and want work done. But I can visualize where monthly account services would get hit by a domino effect.

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