None Payment of Invoice

[hellion]

I have done some work for a company who are not paying their invoice. I have phoned (answerphone) and emailed but am not getting any response. I know they are still operating as I keep getting general emails from them. It is not a huge amount of money, but they still owe me. Any advice please!

Small claims court! Write to them, send the letter recorded delivery, saying if you don't have payment in full within 7 days they leave you with no alternative.

You can submit a small claim online here. I'm about to do one against a company I worked for.

did you get the work through an agency? Unfortunately this is on of the perils of self employment-chasing up payments!
TAlk to the agency as I've found that they can usually put you through the right channels-answerphone is not going to get much attention IMO!

Have you sent a statement (by post) of what they owe too? Some companies only pay when they get a proper statement through. Accounts dept thing.

Are you VAT registered ?

Are you calling their finance or accounts dept directly?

I would send a clear statement of money owed with a covering letter asking for payment by return or else you will take steps to recover the money from them with costs. It's a bit of a nightmare- I had to start putting a stipulation of late payment fees in contracts for some clients as they were so crap at paying invoices. Good luck.

I work in finance - try to get the direct line of someone in the accounts payable department, check that they've received your invoice (and that it's in the right format), and try to get them to commit to a payment date. Phoning is much more effective than email or statements. Be really nice, and emphasise that you're a small business and that they're hurting your cashflow. Most finance people I know realise how important cash is to a small business, and will make every effort to help - unless they've got no cash themselves.

If you get someone who doesn't care, then send a letter threatening legal action, with a deadline of a week, and then follow through. Threats of legal action tend to get your invoice to the top of the pile.

Do try really hard to speak to AP first though. I've had loads of occasions when I couldn't pay invoices from small businesses, because they were missing a crucial bit of information, or they'd been sent to the project manager rather than me, and not passed on.

Thanks very much for your advice (esp the link to the small claim online). I undertook the work directly. They owe me £150.00, which isn't a lot, and I don't want to end up out of pocket if the claim isn't successful. I am not VAT registered. I only have one number for them, but am going keep calling.

How long ago did you invoice them? Most of my clients take 6 weeks to pay (one client last year took 4 months!). It's such a painful part of self-employment .