To ask for your help in wording a letter to chase up late salary payments please?

[Pariswhenitdrizzles]

Hi everyone.

I hope you don't mind that I'm posting for traffic!

I started some part-time tuition for some companies in March, and billed the people who I worked for at the end of March. The companies both said that they pay their tutors by the middle of the next month at the latest, so I should have expected the money billed in March to be in my account by now. However, it's now April 28th, and I still haven't been paid.

AIBU to please ask you for suggestions on wording a short and polite message to the companies to let them know that I haven't yet been paid? (I'm awful at being assertive - it's definitely something that I need to work on!! )

Thanks so much!

You say salary but then talk about billing the company.

Are you employed by them or self employed as this makes a difference to your next step.

You are not chasing up unpaid salary, if you have invoiced them you have provided a service and are not their employee.

Did you state payment terms on your invoice?

The usual way is to send a copy of the original invoice with REMINDER or Overdue on it, I would follow up with a phone call to the payment section asking confirming the invoice had been received and asking them to confirm when it will be paid. Invoices can easily go missing in large organisations !!!! (both intentionally and in error)

Invoicing, not salary. Just fwd the original email with the invoice attached and say you are chasing payment on this. If you want to sound more polite, say 'could you let me know when you expect this payment to be made'. But I would expect to be paid the end of the following month (so 1.5 months after invoice) that's more usual. Most companies only do one payment run a month, at the end of the month.

Phone the company and find out their procedures for payments eg there's no point writing a nice note to the XXX department if payments are organised by the ZZZ department. Knowledge is power.
If you phone you may find that there is some simple error or oversight eg they can't pay you because they haven't got your bank details.
Find out a name that you can keep phoning back until it is resolved; you don't want to speak to a different person every tine you chase up.

I think payment runs depend on the companies and the industry to be honest.

Honestly I ignore "protocol" regarding invoicing - I find the more squeaky you are the faster you get paid - in 7 yrs of business not one unpaid invoice so some experience and success here.

I send invoice
Then immediately speak to person sent to, confirm they are the correct people and ask if there is someone in accounts I need to copy in.
If there is I do it there and then with a note to confirm spoken to x and they have given me their name, can they please confirm which run this invoice will be paid on.
If I have dealt with the company before and they are OK I wait till confirmed run date and check account if its not in I phone and ask them to confirm it went through and usually its just a wait three days and it clears OK
If I haven't dealt with them before I phone on the Monday of the week pyt due and confirm again its going through that week. Then wait for the date and check pyts as above.

It is always worth checking what their usual process for paying is - so how many days and what day is their banking day for runs etc. Make a note and work around that, make sure any future work is billed THE DAY YOU DO IT not at the end of the month - why build delay into the process.

In terms of what wld I do right now in your situtaion - get on the phone and speak to person dealing with pyts in account and ask them what the delay is. If its sign off spk to person you invoiced and chase daily till done. If its just process delays ask them to expedite as this is now overdue and you have a strict follow up policy, and that no further work can be done for the organisation until payments are forthcoming.

Thanks eveyone for your quick answers - I really appreciate it!

I've now sent both companies a quick email based on the suggestions here from Imamouse - thanks!

Sorry, I should have specified - I am self-employed, and I'm chasing up invoice payments rather than salary.

I usually ring accounts payable. Often the person you did the work for hasn't actually presented the invoice for payment