Chasing invoice payment and a general question

[Squirrel]

I work for a small family business run by a couple, they’re both absolutely lovely but quite stuck in their ways, particularly the husband.

My job is general office person and recently I’ve taken on more of the finance work. It’s come to light that my boss leaves customer invoices unpaid and doesn’t chase them up. I’ve been flagging these up to him for ages but it has slowly dawned that he’s doing nothing about it, so I’m doing it myself.

I started by emailing each customer to request payment. In some cases it was clearly an oversight and they have paid straight away. I’ve got about £10k paid just by doing this which is extremely satisfying.

Some of the others are trickier and I suspect they’re avoiding paying.

My next step is obviously to phone them, any tips for what to say to get money out of non-paying customers? If they still don’t pay, I would start sending more serious demands but I strongly suspect my boss won’t be comfortable with that so does anyone else have any tips or suggestions on what to say or how to approach it? The customers are usually small to medium retailers.

That’s question one I have another question to follow.

[Luna]

My opening gambit after greetings would be

I see your invoice for xxx from the *insert date* is outstanding. How would you like to pay that today?

That was my tactic at the vets anyway.

[Luna]

Get to the point quickly and get off phone asap.

[Annabella]

Normally with phone chasing would be friendly - "did you get the invoice? Do you need a copy?" Iff they have it then just ask when they expect to pay - check if any approvals needed within their company and ask to speak to the approver.

[Squirrel]

The second thing is about my job share. She’s been there nearly a year now and about 80% of our jobs cross over, but she does some stuff that I don’t do and vice versa.

For the bit that we share - she is not great at it. I think she prefers the other aspect of the job but this is the main part. The job isn’t that difficult but it is quite varied and detailed, and you do need to spend some time learning it properly.

She has zero attention to detail, doesn’t appear to check anything and seems to try and reinvent the wheel and do things her own way rather than following process / convention.

When she started I wrote a job manual, as the previous job holder had done the same for me when I started and it was my bible. But she still makes mistakes all the time even when it’s written down.

To begin with, I used to correct her mistakes and leave a note pointing out that e.g. for international customers please use the international invoice template, or whatever. But now I have given up. I ignore her mistakes, don’t correct them unless it’s something that affects me, and don’t tell the bosses as I feel like I’m telling tales and it’s getting ridiculous after a year, she should have either learnt it or learnt to check by now. I still have to check my work all the time!

I figure that most of her mistakes are small and don’t really matter that much, and if it matters it’ll come out in the wash. It mostly just annoys me but I don’t think causes any other major problems. I’m quite surprised though as my boss is a massive nit picker and I’m amazed he’s not climbing the walls! I also worry that at some point it will be something bigger and will matter.

Do you think I should handle it in a different / better way? Or just carry on what I’m doing - doing my own job and ignoring the 17 fuck ups of hers that I discover every day?!

[Squirrel]

Iff they have it then just ask when they expect to pay - check if any approvals needed within their company and ask to speak to the approver.

This is useful thank you!

[Luna]

With regards to your colleague, this is tricky one because asking her to do things hadn’t worked in the past. Do you share a work diary of some sort? Can you put things that she needs to amend in it?

[Squirrel]

No, the nature of the job is that there isn’t much/any handover, we receive an order and generally process it the same day. If it can’t be done that day it is left pending and completed the next day.

If that means the other person is picking it up, it is all either self explanatory, explained in the manual or on the customer’s record, or can easily be checked by looking at past orders. E.g some customers have different pricing or payment terms or courier arrangements or delivery addresses etc, which is all on the customer record so you just have to look it up or learn it.

[kiwi]

Friendly but firm is the way to go on first contact ("Hi, how are you? I'm just calling about your overdue invoices...") Most people will pay on first contact as you've found but some take a bit more persuading, and if they are repeat customers there is always the option of withholding delivery. This can be done politely ("I'm really sorry but I can't despatch until x invoice is paid..") Don't be afraid to start chasing the worst offenders as soon as your credit terms are breached, so a day or two after your 30 days or whatever are up, they will soon get to know you as a company that will chase and will pay on time to keep you off their backs.

ETA I don't know what to suggest about your colleague, that would drive me absolutely mental.

[Kleio]

I've been on the other side of the chasing invoice payment. One of my bosses never paid anyone until at least 90 days. I'd have to field the increasingly firm calls and letters and he'd generally only pay when the provider refused to supply until it was paid.

As for your colleague... I don't know what I'd do but I'd be equally frustrated.

[Squirrel]

Thanks kiwi! That’s really interesting as I told him today that I’m going to start routinely chasing, I think it’s mad that he doesn’t do it already?!

I have suggested withholding delivery but he’s not keen .

[Squirrel]

Thanks for the solidarity re my colleague. I am glad I only job share with her and don’t have to actually work with her as she would drive me demented.

When she first started she emailed and messaged me constantly wanting to swap shifts which made me (probably unfairly) murderous, so I don’t feel like we got off on the right foot to begin with. She doesn’t do it as much now, I don’t know if my boss had a word or if she got the hint. I don’t mind swapping occasionally but it was most weeks and did my noggin in.

[Cerise]

How can you run a business like that? You haven’t paid for the last stuff but, yeah sure, I’ll send you more!

I would find chasing the payments ridiculously satisfying! Do you have a spreadsheet?

[Annabella]

Not sure how your boss doesn't notice colleague's mistakes if there are so many, it must be obvious who was working when the error occurred. Or do you cover up/rectify for her? Does the boss have a prior relationship with her (ie knew her before in another job or a "friend/family" connection)? Is there something else in her life that boss knows about and so gives more leeway.

Generally if you have tried to help, I would just try and ignore as much as possible - hard to actually do though if you are conscientious.

[kiwi]

Unfortunately for some people withholding goods is the only way. I don't expect to go to Tesco and walk out with goods that I might pay for in 30/60/90/whenever I feel like it days so there's no harm in firmly letting your customers know when they are taking the piss.

I'm hyper vigilant at the moment too as there is a higher chance of customers going bust (although I work in hospitality where the percentage of that might be higher than your customer base.)

[kiwi]

Also do you use an accounts package, Sage or something? There should be letters in the reports that you can send that list the invoices outstanding. (Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!)

[Squirrel]

I rectified the mistakes to start with but I don’t bother now. My boss wouldn’t necessarily come across all of them, some things make my life annoying, like files being saved in the wrong place or with wrong file names but don’t really affect the business. He does notice other things like wrong pricing or deliveries to the wrong address etc, obviously they don’t all get reported back to me! So I don’t know how much he’s aware of.

[Squirrel]

No we don’t use any accounts package I just use a spreadsheet. This is a whole other long story but the short version is that boss is very old fashioned and some other things.

Kiwi, exactly that happened a couple of years ago when a customer went bust, I couldn’t believe he was still supplying them when they had stopped paying - i flagged it up several times and then they went under! So it’s not like he doesn’t realise it can happen. I’m absolutely determined for that not to happen again on my watch now I’ve got my teeth into it .

[Squirrel]

I would find chasing the payments ridiculously satisfying! Do you have a spreadsheet?

Yes! And is extremely satisfying it will be even more so when that one fucker has settled the £19.50 they owe us from 2021 as that outlier is really winding me up .

[kiwi]

It's not a job for everyone but I like it. My favourite call when I worked in agriculture was when the farmer told me I might as well speak to his animals as they knew more about his bills than he did, and he put his mobile down in the middle of a bleating bunch of sheep.

Eta My boring accountant's head would say to write off debts for small amounts from years ago as it would cost the business more to chase them. But it would also wind me up to shit.