[Park Cleaning Services]

hi guys, did a job for a well known food chain  on 10 November 2005.  invoiced them same week for £300.  Invoice was then sent to head office accounts department.  it was they usual strictly 14 days invoice that i sent, but still have not been paid.
#
I contacted accounts department and asked for payment and they said they have never heard of me and did not know what i was talking about.  they told me to fax them the invoice which i did with a formal request for immediate payment.  still no payment.  they now claim they never recieved the fax.

faxed twice more, still they claim they not seen my invoice and that it has probably been binned?

was wondering what i can do next?  can i slap them with an extra admin charge? can i charge interest? can i take them to small claims?

problem is the manager i dealt with at the local branch is also a family friend....  PLease advise if you can.


Kind reagards......................Ian

[exoclean]

You must of recieved a purchase order or similar to carry out the work right? Or someone must have called and asked you to do the job. Start at the beginning and go back to to your friend speak to them and explain your problem. Once you have recieved confirmation that the work was ordered place his/her name on the invoice and if possible deliver the invoice by hand. If the head office is too far away I would make a call in the presence of your contact and ask they would be kind enough to speak to the accounts dept on your behalf.

If that fails I would explain to them that you have been disappointed with their attitude and will speak to the MD to resolve the matter. Then explain you will issue a small claims against them in the local court if they fail to pay you within 14 days.

Paul

[John_Flynn]

What more do you expect the blods that are employed in the accounts dept, are in a JOB (Just Over Broke) and they couldn't care a toss about you and your measly £300.00, come on give them a break it's nearly Xmas.

Oh forgot to mention lesson to be learnt :-

NEVER do work for FRIENDS or RELATIONS!!!

You cannot bollock them when things go wrong.

In future INSIST on CASH on completion if they refuse your terms walk away, a lot less stress, look at their faces when you tell them that you do NOT want to work for them, it's worth Thousands.

[Len Gribble]

Ian

I do a lot of work for some of the brand names; you need to know how there system works, you family friend should put you in the picture and agree with John.

Think it was only two weeks ago Halfords are going to 120 days and my bank had the audacity of accusing me of over trading and some are blue chip companies wish they checked copies of my invoices, there name appears on one of subsidiaries!

Len

[Ian Rochester]

Ian,

I presume this is your first venture into national commercial work, what you are experiencing is VERY common.

The red tape that needs to be cut through in order to get an invoice signed off can be unbelievable, we have a few contracts that work on strict 90 days terms, so you need to build that into your price.

You will also find that they will find any excuse for not paying, however they will not contact you to inform you of a problem, they will wait until you ring to chase up the invoice! 

Invoices get "lost" in internal mail, local branches blame head office and vise versa and the whole process has to start again.

If you start encountering problems the best thing I have found is to work with their accounts payable department (you get a better response) if they need another copy of your invoice, fax it and also send a recorded delivery to ensure it has been received.  Also speak to your local contact (friend) and get him to chase it up from the inside.

I generally contact them a week or two before payment is due to ensure they have it on their next payment run.

I have never yet had to resort to "final demands" or small claims courts but I'm sure I've got close to it.

I currently have two domestic customers who have outstanding invoices for roughly £200 each, which are both heading towards final demands and threats of court action.

Luckily my wife is a management accountant in one of these same businesses, has done many years as a credit controller and is very tactile on the phone to accounts departments, she chases up payments for me and generally gets payments through pretty quickly.

Merry Christmas

[Park Cleaning Services]

thanks for the help guys.  i have finally managed to get a payment date from them.  i thought i could decide when to get paid, but it appears different when i am working for commercials.  oh well you live and learn.

All the best, merry xmas and a busy new year to you all.....


Ian

[Alan_Harrison]

Most companies runs a 30 day accounts scheme. That is. If an invoice  is received on  2nd Jan then it's entered into the ledger, together with all the other invoices received in the same month. We wait for a couple of weeks into the following month for the invoices sent out at the end of the month to arrive. Then about the 14th of Feb we lump all the invoices together and pay them before the 20th. This way we can take advantage of the 2.5% settlement discount that some suppliers offer. Its no use putting "Strict Terms" on your invoice unless you are prepared to do enforce the terms. If I fussed around paying invoices on an individual basis I'd never have the time to earn the dosh to pay them.

 Make sure that your invoice clearly shows the Tax date and the date that you completed the work. Payment is scheduled by the tax date not by when the work was done.  Separate out the VAT and show it clearly. If you are not VAT registerd then state that no VAT is added. Encourage your customer to pay by BACS or internet transfer. I often have 30 accounts to pay each month and I always do the BACS payments first. Writing cheques and going out to post them is a pain. Just add your bank account number and sort code to your invoice. If you are worried about security then open a separate account. Monitor it for receipts and transfer them to your main account when they arrive.

 Make sure your stationary looks professional. Printed never hand written and spell check. Once you get into the groove of the company accounts system it works quite well. If you have problems getting payment PM me and I'll send you a copy of a letter we send to late payers. It's very effective

Good luck

[mobile valeting & Power wash Services]

I also have the same with major blue chip companies ie 2 week clean (vehicles x100)send invoice monthly and have waited up to 60 days for payment, this was a surprise to me when I first found out, I work on my own I have no staff to pay so not a real problem and at least they do pay albeit a bit late
the bigger the company the slower they seem to be I now take this into account when invoicing them the cheque looks better every time they send it out
Malky

[scott.]

As was suggested to me on here, not so long ago:
http://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk   I'm just about to issue one to a company thats taking the pee.