CM - Advice about late payer please

[cheekychaps]

I have a parent who for the past 4 weeks pays me a few days late. Wasn't really to much of a problem but now it's Christmas and with dreaded January looming, I could do with the money being on time. I did drop a few hints this morning when she said she'd pay me tomorrow.

We agreed in the contract to pay me in advance (every Monday), but at the time I never included a late payment fee.

What can I do without seeming rude?

err.....don't worry about seeming rudE!!!
Tell her it's xmas and you need the money on time as you need to buy stuff

Cheeky, you might have to be a bit more assertive - difficult, I know. But payment is due when payment is due iyswim.

Perhaps when you come to review your contracts you could think about adding a late payment penalty clause ?

HTH

Newsletter time...

"dear parents, just a little reminder that all fee's must be paid on the morning of the first day your child is in my care, as i, like yourselves, have arrangements and commitments that i must adhear to as well as direct debits coming out of my account. This means that if i am late paying my fee's in, i will inccur charges and will then have to start adding a late payment fee onto and late fee's.
I will give each parent an invoice on the last day of the week for the following weeks fee's, so you are all aware of how much is to be paid the first morning your child is with me.

Thankyou for you co operation
xyz"........

that should do the trick, then draft up a 'addition' to contracts saying that alte payments will be charged at £10 per day with immediate effect and hand out to every parent

also, i wrote a newsletter last week confirming my holidays over christmas and saying that i require paying as normal and with Christmas Eve being on the monday)most peoples pay day) to ensure it was in well before so it clears in time, otherwise to give me the fees in cash on the friday before when we break up.
I will be invoiceing everyone for the 2 weeks over christmas and new year on monday 17th with a note about paying on time otherwise i will be charged.

dare I politely suggest you drop the apostrophe from fee's? The plural of fee is fees.

Don't forget capitals and it is adhere.

FFS!, i wont bother trying to help if my already rubbish spelling is going to be picked apart!

We are trying to help the person who may use your letter. It just looks better if things are spelt correctly.

, my little bit was a suggestion, i dont expect she'll copy and paste it!
Bloody hell!, my spelling is usually far worse than that!, i'd get my coat now!

where have you helped the person who started post? all i can see is correction of my spelling? totally beside the point

Perhaps start a late payment policy in the new year? My cm charged £5 a day for late payment (and I always pay on time ). I also pay a month in advance as it's easier for me to budget (and I don't have to remember to write a cheque every week).

SSN: I don't think it was a criticism of you . Some of us get all het up about Cruelty to the Apostrophe and you'll prob get similar comments on other posts.

All my parents pay in advance although i do let them pay on collection sometimes as long as its still the first day of care for them.
My monthly paying parents pay on the first of each month or again the first day of care..has worked so far, although had one problem a while back which was soon resolved when i said i would be getting charged so so would she

Last Christmas, one of my two parents didnt pay me until i came back after the new year!, i didnt have the guts to say anything and she wasnt that concerned that id gone overdrawn!, you have to make sure YOU are ok, no payment = no care..harsh and always an exception but best to stick to that as much as poss if you're getting taken for a ride

Helping her by correcting the spelling in case she didn't know the correct way. That is all.

Effieperine, just a bit harsh i think when i was trying to help and instead of helping the OP, people would rather pull me up about my writing!, i write as i speak and type too fast which is why spell check is a good thing when im writing anything important, not a quick post on MN!

I charge £50 if payment is a day late. Haven't had to enforce it so far!

MN not important??

SSN: completely off-topic but have you tried the new whizzy Google spellcheck thing? It works on posts as well (as I discovered by mistake). The only irritating thing is that it underlines my user name as well and I can't seem to switch that bit off!

EP if you right click on the word you can add it to the dictionary.

NAB3

Effie, havent seen that but i hate it when writing letters and the little red/green lines appear and as you will imaginge, i get an awful lot of them

In that case carry on

Thanks for the tip ILKK

Now i'm checking my writing, cant believe in 4 years i am now having to check my spelling/writing on mumsnet..its half the fun working out what im saying!, im one step away from cod normally

ss, honestly, I didn't mean to offend, I did try and put it politely! tbh I hadn't even read the names carefully and thought you were the CM of the OP and you were about to send out the note, and I just thought it might help to remove a little error, but one that was repeated a few times, so the effectiveness of the message came across, rather than someone nit picking at the grammar.

I was also trying to help, honestt? Lots of people make this mistake, I didn't critisise you or say it was stupid and didn't mean it that way at all

Sokay aherm..i mean It is okay , just two in quick succesion got my heckles up

just seen your last post am feeling .(. I also make plenty of mistakes, who doesn't? I just thought you were going to give it out to parents (now i realise you are not the op, but were kindly helping her) and wanted to spare you that's all. sorry