Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: king marko on October 17, 2011, 08:30:02 pm
-
Ok...
My round is worth about £2500 a month and I always have a running debt list of about £400.
Is this normal?? I admit I don't go out collecting (most either pay on the day, PayPal/bank transfer or chq) but some just wait till I catch them in (this is mostly due to the distance of the rounds)
There's only about 5 customers who owe more than two cleans.
Is this common amongst you guys?
It's been like this since I started full time, and never increases out of hand just want to know that its not unusual
Cheers
-
i wish mine was that low :P
-
Wish mine was £400
-
Ive got around £20,000 owed out,
I wouldnt worry too much about £400,
Dean.
-
Joking right?
I thought it was unusual coz I don't collect at night.
The missus is pushing me to try and pull it in before I go on holiday at the end of the week!!
-
If you collect it all in before going on holiday and spend it all then you'll realise you're skint when you get home because you'll have no steady stream of cheques coming in through the post. ( if that's how you normally collect from your debtors).
I wouldn't worry about it too much, as the round size increases then so does the outstanding debt list.
-
No im not joking,
It was alot worse than that too at one point.
Dean.
-
Bloody hell - I'll shut up and count me blessings!!
Any ideas how to deal with non payers?
Got one chap, spoken to him a couple of times, owes me 3 cleans @ £30
For about 2 months now with no sign of paying - any thoughts??
-
Bloody hell - I'll shut up and count me blessings!!
Any ideas how to deal with non payers?
Got one chap, spoken to him a couple of times, owes me 3 cleans @ £30
For about 2 months now with no sign of paying - any thoughts??
mark dean is commercial with a few lads ;)
collect the bad payers then slowly but surely replace them and get rid until you have good payers, it takes a while and you always have that few that need replacing
-
£400 , youre letting it slide mate. i collect satday morn , sure its 2 hours of my time but im never more than 30 quid behind on the whole round,nobodys owing 2 cleans . it took me a while to get it down to 2 hours collecting though i grant you
-
Dont clean them again
Stick a letter through his door asking him to pay
or my favorite....
stick a letter through his door telling him that if he doesnt pay then you will pass his debt on to your nominated debt collection agency or claim the debt back through the small claims court.
Ive done this twice now... both 2 cleans - 1 refused to pay out right, the other kept telling me she paid (her laptop magically died when i went round to see her record of payment). Stuck the letter in the door and as if by magic the money appeared in my account on day 7
Obviously i havent cleaned either of their windows since... but if your not bothered about loosing them then its a nice way to do it for people who have a nice house and nice cars and the neighbours think they are loaded.
If you really want to p them off then put the letter addressed to the person in question and the envelope (not sealed) with just 'owner' on it and stick it through next door ;)
Next door will either hand deliver it to them and they will know they have read it or they will just seal it and post next door ;D
-
Think I've done well so far weeding out the bad ones, but there's always a couple!
Trouble is I get conned by the nice customers who always chat and make you a brew but then say "can I post it to you coz I haven't got any cash on me and can't find my chq book" etc.. Then end up owing
-
As long as all your debtors are new ones don't worry.
You'll always be owed money.
You have to be very persistant with slow payers sometimes, knock at different times, on the way home from a night out is a good one, ;D and then as soon as replaced drop them, unless there was a v v good reason for late payment
I'm normally owed about a £1000, but none of it is more than 6 weeks old. With the exception of Rentokil_initial who are always late paying.
-
Gonna try this method cheers - bloke in question won't respond to calls/texts now and never answers door. Dont clean them again
Stick a letter through his door asking him to pay
or my favorite....
stick a letter through his door telling him that if he doesnt pay then you will pass his debt on to your nominated debt collection agency or claim the debt back through the small claims court.
Ive done this twice now... both 2 cleans - 1 refused to pay out right, the other kept telling me she paid (her laptop magically died when i went round to see her record of payment). Stuck the letter in the door and as if by magic the money appeared in my account on day 7
Obviously i havent cleaned either of their windows since... but if your not bothered about loosing them then its a nice way to do it for people who have a nice house and nice cars and the neighbours think they are loaded.
If you really want to p them off then put the letter addressed to the person in question and the envelope (not sealed) with just 'owner' on it and stick it through next door ;)
Next door will either hand deliver it to them and they will know they have read it or they will just seal it and post next door ;D
-
As long as all your debtors are new ones don't worry.
You'll always be owed money.
You have to be very persistant with slow payers sometimes, knock at different times, on the way home from a night out is a good one, ;D and then as soon as replaced drop them, unless there was a v v good reason for late payment
I'm normally owed about a £1000, but none of it is more than 6 weeks old. With the exception of Rentokil_initial who are always late paying.
funny you say that, they pay 60 days from invoice, and I am surprised you still do them, they are under pressure to use their own window cleaning squads, I do an initial textiles, and they are trying to get me to take a company credit card to avoid using the window cleaning part of the company
-
No im not joking,
It was alot worse than that too at one point.
Dean.
surely thats mainly commercial work tho mate?
-
No probs Mark. want me to see if ive got my copy still ?
-
Just a thought - thinking of putting stamps on envelopes of the late payers , just as a subtle hint like (the customers who pay, but not within the 28 days I ask for) what do you reckon? Anybody else do this?
-
Yeah please mate id really appreciate that ta
No probs Mark. want me to see if ive got my copy still ?
-
No im not joking,
It was alot worse than that too at one point.
Dean.
surely thats mainly commercial work tho mate?
Yes mate and all established payers so theres no sleep to be lost,
I have had people rip me off on the domestics when weve fallen behind on the collecting side and its seriously annoying, for example the owe x3 lots but are adamant its only x2.
Collect collect collect.
Dean.
-
One rule and one rule only.
If they owe you for the last clean, and you are due to clean them in the next week, they arnt customers!
We dont allow even one clean to go overdue. 5 Days, payment needs to be in. 7 days later, if still no payment, they are put on hold, and a letter goes out. 30 days late, well they are cancelled, letter goes out threatening civil action and we no longer accept them as future customers.
There are so many willing people to pay ontime, your wasting your time with non payers, and they are taking advantage of you.
-
Sounds about average to me, if you are using accounting software you need to take the non paying cancelled customers off the list !
-
I am running about 7.5k in debt. And find it a rush to get the money in by the end of the month. Commercial always seem to run late which doesnt help
-
There is a rule of thumb is business circles" any debt over 90 days is lost" If you leave things as long as this you have set a president its as good as saying I will let you get away with anything.Cash flow has not become a major problem in the window cleaning yet but it will kill a business. We all need a policy within our business haw much debt we will handle E G 1 Invoice 2 Reminder.3 Warning with consequences. Pursue in court and hand over to debt collection.",,2,3,4. will all need letters.
-
As long as all your debtors are new ones don't worry.
You'll always be owed money.
You have to be very persistant with slow payers sometimes, knock at different times, on the way home from a night out is a good one, ;D and then as soon as replaced drop them, unless there was a v v good reason for late payment
I'm normally owed about a £1000, but none of it is more than 6 weeks old. With the exception of Rentokil_initial who are always late paying.
funny you say that, they pay 60 days from invoice, and I am surprised you still do them, they are under pressure to use their own window cleaning squads, I do an initial textiles, and they are trying to get me to take a company credit card to avoid using the window cleaning part of the company
The contract I do is on a shopping centre so it works in well with some other shops. They always pay me on 30 days from invoice date, in theory that is, it's usually 45 days.
They had 'IT problems' recently and were later still.
Just a tip if they are late paying send an email and copy it to several people one of them their boss and things seem to happen then.
I live on the coast (Thanet the road to nowhere) so I think it's a bit far for their squads but I'm sure the contract will go in the end. Had it for 6 years so far though.