To sack this client who is ALWAYS late paying?

[SapphireBattersea]

And to ask for any ideas of how to word the email please ?

I run a cleaning company and most of my clients are fantastic and pay on time

However one client takes the absolute piss. We do a couple of hours office cleaning a week for them so about £50 a week. Not a huge amount but it does affect my cash flow as my staff are paid weekly, and this company are always REALLY late paying usually 3 or 4 weeks. And this is after several emails from me chasing it which wastes my time

But enough is enough now and I've decided to get rid. I am new to being in business I have only been trading since late last year and have never had to sack a client! Any ideas how to word an email saying I no longer wish to work with them?

With the greatest respect as rude as they may be. They're doing you the favor by giving you their business not the other way round

I binned a customer with that exact attitude when I did domestic cleaning. Big beautiful house which was a pleasure to work in. Always off on jaunts around the world but just didn't like paying me.

His face was priceless when I binned him off. He genuinely thought he was doing me the favour and not the other way around. Attitudes like that say a lot about a person yanno.

They're doing you the favor by giving you their business not the other way round

I disagree. The OP is selling a skill/service which the client needs. It's not a one sided arrangement where she is getting all the benefits. It's hard to get reliable and efficient cleaners.

Part of my job is freelance, completely different area of work, but I recently said no to a job because the client took nearly 6 months to pay my invoice last time I worked for them. They weren't happy (its a very specialist area, so not easy to find someone to do the work), offered more money, but for me it wasn't worth it because it was a lot of stress and wasted time chasing up the money last time and I have enough work elsewhere. I think it's fine to be honest, but polite about the reasons.

The last company I worked for would only pay 60 days after they were invoiced, not before.

They would only pay for work done 2 months after it was completed, even for cleaners and contractors?

I don't blame you for wanting to sack them OP, keep it to the point and just state that you will no longer be able to provide them with this service. There are plenty of other clients out there who wont take the piss in paying for work.

offer to keep them on as clients if they pay at beginning of every month, in advance?

You clean for them as part of a contract, whether explicit or implied. They pay you a mutually agreeable amount within a mutually agreeable timescale, and you clean for them for an agreed period of time to an agreed standard. There is no favour being done by either side. You want money, they want a clean office, you trade!

They aren't meeting your requirements. If you weren't meeting their requirements they would soon speak up.

If it were me i'd explain your issue and try to resolve it. If they can't or are unwilling to, and you are sure the business is more hassle than it is worth, sack 'em without a second thought.

I used to work in an industry where the standard was months and months late. Self employed individuals and main client was the state in one way or another!

Got fed up in the end!

As you say your staff like working there, I’d try asking for payment in advance first.

Write saying that and ask for their outstanding invoice to be paid and advance payment for next month. So there’s no interruption to their cleaning.

Make it very positive and say you look forward to continuing to be of service to them.

Actually, you are the one providing the service for money, so you can resign, but you won't be able to sack them. It will have no impact on them, they will just find someone else to do the job. On the other hand you will be losing the income, so, while I can appreciate it's a pain in the neck, while you're within the first two precarious years, I'd shy away from intentionally losing a client. It would be emotionally satisfying, yes, but a cleaning company's bad review won't have much impact on the operative company's profits, while the same can't be said if they smear your reputation to other companies.

Yes they are doing the op a great favour by having her clean for nothing. Are you the cf client?

but a cleaning company's bad review won't have much impact on the operative company's profits, while the same can't be said if they smear your reputation to other companies.

How could they smear the Ops company? She provides a service each week that they are choosing not to pay for in a timely manner, she has done nothing wrong??

If a company agree to your terms when they enter into a contract with you then surely the onus is on them to pay within the agreed timeframe? Not on you to await payment at a time that suits them. That's the reason why many businesses are unable to work with the public sector, because they are too slow to pay and too rigid in their timeframes.

I think you should speak to them. Perhaps the issue is that they only pay on set dates, or maybe their finance department is really inefficient. 3 or 4 weeks doesn't sound that long for a big company.
If they would agree to pay in advance it would solve the problem. You could frame it as 'either pay in advance or will cost extra to cover late payment '.

DrVonPatak its a figure of speech. Obviously not a sacking in the traditional sense of the word.

OP, work out whether this company is helping or hindering your business by delaying payment and whether you would be more profitable with or without this client. Act out of pragmatism rather than frustration and emotion.

I've never heard of a business sacking a client. Perhaps I need to get out more, though

You do. I have worked for many companies, large and small who have fired customers. A customer that actually costs you extra to service when you could be dealing with a good one is a customer you don't need or want (provided of course you know you can realise them). I have also worked for two companies that appeared to be prepared to put up with absolutely anything from customers - both of them went bust.

Write saying that and ask for their outstanding invoice to be paid and advance payment for next month. So there’s no interruption to their cleaning

I like that.

It would be emotionally satisfying, yes, but a cleaning company's bad review won't have much impact on the operative company's profits, while the same can't be said if they smear your reputation to other companies

Any company that did this would show themselves up for the type of company they are and serve as a warning to other cleaning companies

It reminds me of a discussion I had with the husband about the bin cleaners. He thought it was fine to miss one and catch up next time because it's only a few quid. I was of the opinion that what if a lot of customers had the same thought. Just because 'its 3 quid'.

Disgraceful attitude to have. If someone does the work then you pay them for it. On freaking time.

If you could do with their work whilst your business is in it's early stages perhaps you could insist that they pay by standing order for the fixed amount of £50 per week. No need to chase them up and no building up a large balance, saves them admin time in making payment too.

awwlook are you doing your electric/water/telephone/internet supplier a 'favour'

No they are providing you with a service that they should be paid for ...on time. Same for OP this isnt a mate doing some cleaning for £10 an hour. This a,business providing a service

With all due respect not sure you understand business

Whats with this ‘they are doing you a favour by giving you the work’. Am I doing the grocer’s a favour by buying their potatoes? Of course not. OP needs a contract with the business with penalties for late payment, and if they breach the contract she is quite within her rights to find another client.

Businesses refusing to pay for months are just using underhanded tactics to get what are effectively free loans. It’s a deplorable practice. To use the grocer analogy, I can’t go to buy potatoes but say ‘I’ll pay you when I get fed up of you chasing me for the money’. Small businesses need to be ruthless when it comes to being bullied by big ones.

If you'd like to keep them, then I suggest building a relationship with their Accounts Payable person. Let them know that the late payment is causing you problems, and see if you can work out a solution between you. They might be able to put you on 0 days terms instead of 30, or get you to email your invoices directly to them rather than have someone sit on them for a few weeks.

Take 50% up front .Job done.

They're doing you the favor by giving you their business not the other way round

You're in cloud cuckoo land if you think a viable business is run with customers who are constantly behind on paying for services they've already benefited from.

My DH runs his own business and a few times he has only because I nag him, because he's way too soft said he "will be unable to continue providing services unless invoices are settled promptly.

Sometimes it gives them a kick up the bum, but in one occasion a customer didn't respond positively so he pulled the plug and refused to work for them.

When he calculated all the lost time faffing around with emails, then reminders, then "please can you resend the invoice, we appear to have lost it" bollox, it wasn't worth his while.

Just to warn you, whenever I have added late payment interest to very late payers, they have systematically ignored the surcharge and paid only the original fee. It's not quite the wake up call you'd hope for.
The only way to manage it ime is to withhold your service until payment is made. But that's not easy if you have staff depending on a certain number of hours' work.

@IM0GEN

Great idea thank you

@daisychain01 this is exactly the bull shit I deal with every month 🤦‍♀️ saying they've "lost" my invoice and all sorts

Arse holes

They are most certainly not doing you a favour by employing your services, that's madness.OP just invoice the monthly, giving them 30 days credit so yes they will be paying a month after, but that's the norm really.