Help collecting unpaid invoices1/22/2024 While conventional wisdom suggests charging late payment interest can help the payment process, small firms are somewhat reluctant to stake their claim. We’ve got an article about what interest you can charge on late invoice payments with further details. So, the total statutory interest payable on the invoice would be 8.75%. Write a letter or email to your client stating that, if your invoice isn’t paid within a certain number of days, you’ll charge them statutory interest, which is 8%, plus the Bank of England base rate for business-to-business transactions, which in October 2018 is 0.75%. We have some free Late Payment Reminder letter templates for you to use. If neither of these methods yields any fruit, you may want to get a bit more formal. So, your payment deadline has passed and all you can hear is the sound of, well, silence.įirst, shoot a casual payment reminder email over to your client and, if you don’t get any joy (in terms of a meaningful response), follow-up with a call to their accounts department. How to chase an unpaid invoice (without chasing your client away) Regardless of the reason behind it, late payment – and especially non-payment – hits your pocket no less hard. Then there are situations where the client is genuinely disputing whether or not your service has been properly delivered and has withheld payment accordingly. Or it could be more calculated, such as your client disputing an invoice simply to avoid paying it. It could be something completely innocent, like your client not having a purchase order number for you or invoicing the wrong entity (yes, it’s been known to happen). There’s a bottomless pit of excuses on hand for unpaid invoices but, more often than not, it boils down to poor credit management. What reasons are given for unpaid invoices? In other words, a credit period of 30 days. When there isn’t an agreement in place, then the Gov.uk website states that the customer must pay you within 30 days of getting your invoice or goods or service. In some industries, it’s customary for clients to pay before the end of the month which follows the invoice month, leaving a possible credit period of up to 60 days. The credit period begins either on the day the work is completed (or when the goods are delivered), or the date when the customer receives a notice of payment due – whichever of these is the latest. And with these closures is the potential for scores of job losses, too. About 23% said that late payments put them at risk of closure. In 2015, a global provider of e-invoicing, invoice financing, and spend analytics, the Tungsten Network, surveyed 1,000 senior decision-makers in SMEs. Research from Siemens Financial Services reported in .uk found that late invoice payments meant small businesses could not access up to up to £250 billion of cash they were entitled to. Moreover, late payments can cost you your business. They can (and often do) have major consequences – not least the adverse effect on cash flow and the inability to pay staff and suppliers on time. Late payments are anything but a minor inconvenience. What are the effects of late invoice payment? The problem is even more acute in the public sector, with nine out of ten public sector suppliers saying they have been paid late, despite governmental measures put in place to force all public sector bodies to settle invoices issued by SMEs within 30 days. This time could otherwise be spent pitching, promoting, and growing a business – precious time that can never be clawed back. The net result is that to stay afloat and in the black, UK firms have to set aside solid chunks of time every week to chase late-paying clients. The report also claims UK companies are paid an average of 18 days late. The UK averaged 66%, the US 71%, and Europe 73%. MarketInvoice found that a shocking 62% of invoices in 2017 were paid late. According to Anil Stocker, co-founder and CEO of the financial technology company and peer-to-peer lender, MarketInvoice, “Late payment is the silent killer of modern business.” His firm spent the last five years looking at 30,000 invoices issued in over 93 countries and their research noted a “harmful practice” of late invoice payments and unpaid invoices.
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