Late invoice. How to word 'bloody pay it NOW?' politely?

[HalfBakedIdea]

I have my own company and one of my clients, I work for remotely, basically admin / PA type duties, all from home. I invoice him every 4 weeks and I allow 7 days for payment of my invoice

He started off paying on the day he received the invoice. Then it started getting later and later - all fine as always paid within my 7 days

This invoice however is 4 days late and no sign of being paid. I know he's about, he's very active on his social media channels (part of his job) but he's a very awkward and tricky person to deal with, which I shan't go into

How do you word a 'I need you to pay this today' email without being arsey because arsey doesn't d how I feel?

You insert a clause in your T&Cs from now on claiming interest. Send the amended T&Cs to the client bringing the late payment penalty to their notice.

Although you can claim this under statutory authority (doesn't have to be within your T&Cs, it's implied in the contract by law) if the payment is over 60 days www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-recovery

Your message is a bit nicey-nicey, whack a reference on your invoice that it's due within x days or you'll charge interest. If unpaid then send a message saying it's due or you will have to charge a late payment fee (if this is what your T&Cs say) plus interest.

Messages like this can just say 'I note you haven't paid this invoice, payment was due by x date, please pay now to avoid late charges'

Your message is far too apologetic and he sounds the sort of dick that will enjoy your being uncomfortable about it all.

I'd agree with your assessment of him, which is why I said OP might want to reconsider the professional relationship.

Dear X

A timely reminder your invoice is now due, before you skip the country sun seeking or break a leg on the ski fields, please pay today - attach pay link.

thanks

Yes, its a little bit apologetic isn't it?

However I do wish to keep the job as it's well paid. So I'm hoping I've got the point across that I require payment TODAY without being too antagonistic

Late payment fees unless same day payment. Also unless paid, account on hold.

I hope you get your money today!

I am self employed and have a number of long term clients. The kind of work I do is small amounts of daily work for lots of people.

I - like you - give them 7 days to pay the invoice. I invoice weekly, so if they don't pay the invoices end up stacking.

They get an extra week to pay - if a third invoice stacks, my work stops until they're all paid.

I hate chasing money. I always send the generic sage wording that comes up with a statement usually works.

Hope he pays you today

He paid within half an hour of my email.

Thanks for advice. I'll be adding a note at the bottom of the invoice going forward I think

I'm going self employed, and am offering rates in a pay upfront bundle (say, 40 hours for £1200, no work until payment received), and rates for paying monthly (say, £110/month which adds up to £1320), with late charges for monthly payment, and a term stating that persistent failure to pay in a timely fashion will render you ineligible to pay monthly.

This might work for your service, especially with established clients.

Remember, you can always be MORE flexible than your T&Cs - and people will thank you for it, but you can't impose them in retrospect.

And almost no one buys a service thinking they'll have difficulty paying for it, so you'll only put off cheeky twat timewasters who query the rules.

It's not 11 days late though. You can't expect an invoice to be paid the day it's issued! It's 4 days late and the only time he has been late.

Yes to what others have said about chasing today and introducing late fees but everything else about him previously delaying from paying originally to paying within 7 days is irrelevant - if your policy is pay within 7 days of receiving invoice he can take 7 days, its not indicative of anything.

I've never understood this mentality we English have of chasing up money or anything that is rightfully ours, or that we have worked for as being embarrassing as its not the person monies owed to is in the wrong it's the tramp that doesn't pay their bills or pay back the people that do services for them so no u are not in the wrong the cf who is overdue paying u is and you shouldn't feel awkward getting what is rightfully yours.
Anyway good luck and I hope u get this resolved.

That works, but only if they need you as as supplier / service provider more than you need them as a customer!

It doesn't work quite so well if you are self-employed. I had one customer like that who owed me weeks-worth of invoices and made it quite clear to me that he wouldn't pay them unless I continued working. He was a bit of a dodgy character and I knew that if I downed tools I'd never get the money. I never did get the last £400 or so out of him, and not long after I left in disgust, he put the company into liquidation so that was that.

I have the same issue with one of my clients.

I've always been paid over a week late, I request payment within 24 hours as the amount is quite small. The last time she paid it was 10 days late so I told her that I don't have the luxury of getting monthly wage and that I need paying on time and within 24 hours or at the point of the service. She was late once again after that so I asked for cash at the time of the service, which she did. She knows I have a waiting list of clients and I will not hesitate to move on to the next client if it continues. It's funny how the people with the most means to pay are always the ones that don't do it on time.

When I had my own business, I phoned to chase an invoice that was over two months late. I'd written myself a little script that included the words Legal Advice.

The cutomer got huffy at this and said "Oh, so you don't want my business in future". I burst out laughing and replied, "No, I'd much rather deal with people who actually pay me" Normally I'd find it hard to be direct, but his attitude was so laughable that it came out spontaneously. He paid up, and remained a customer.

Why? Plenty sent a reminder that payment is due email !! (Drive me mad! As I do lots of paying & tend to pay in my own terms - but when I’m laying huge corporations £40/£50 and they can’t put a DD system in place, they can wait!)
always pay real people promptly (before I get lynched!)

do you invoice weekly or monthly?

It was 4 days after the 7 days, so yes, 11 days!

As per the terms of our agreement payment was due on x date. If this is not paid within the next ten days I will be forced to forward this onto a third party agency/small claims (whatever is appropriate) to obtain the overdue monies

Also introduce a late payment charge of half a days fees per day it's late.

I just send an email with "please pay me!" in the subject line and then a brief message in the email about the payment being late and please could it be sorted ASAP. I also reattach the invoice

Seems to work but I only do this is just with clients I have worked for a lot and have a good relationship with.

Use software like Quickfile, it's excellent (and free!), you can automatically include payment terms at the bottom of each invoice including late fees and set it up to chase for you automatically when it's overdue. I hate chasing money as well but it takes the personal element out of the equation for me. Well done on getting paid as soon as you took action!

One of the payment things that makes me fume is our local county council. After chasing them for a purchase order for several months, getting passed from pillar to post, and "no one" apparently having the authority to do the purchase order for the item they received 8 months ago, you get the purchase order. You then have to enter the invoice on a website.

When it gets to the end, despite you typing in that the invoice was due in early 2022 and it's now a year later, it cheerfully pops up with the suggestion that you can tick a box to "be paid early"-for which it gives itself a discount of 5%.

No. Even if you pay me within the hour, you're still late paying.

Letter before action after one last polite reminder.