[Wc Solutions]

We do a job for a large London based cleaning company, call it sub work i guess.

Anyway its the daily cleaning of a large furniture store with monthly window cleaning ...

We supply the kit and do the job, agreement was 4 weekly invoice to be put on the payroll - so we are supposed to be paid every 4 weeks like full time staff would do.

goes through patches of good payments and patches of bad late payments...

i ring up - no good - talking to the monkeys

i email - no reply

i write - no reply

i would dump it but its worth alot of money per month!

any ideas guys

[elite mike]

get shot martin ,it sounds like to much hassle to me

but get whats owed first 

[Wc Solutions]

get shot martin ,it sounds like to much hassle to me

but get whats owed first 

its 5k a month mate

[elite mike]

get the money then

even though its a high earner ,if your not getting the money

its not worth anything

[Archer]

WC Solutions,

you seem to be answering questions yourself by saying its worth alot of money = £5k per month

However, you are not getting paid and chasing your money , so surely a job at £100 that pays with no hassle MUST be better, otherwise cashflow is going to be a serious problem, if you have to chase everybody you provide a service for ?

Only my opinion as i have and am in a similar position

[Wc Solutions]

staff in mind ... its just so annoying that some spotty office geek doesnt put the invoice through on time and causes so many problems.

my guys work hard on this job and get paid well for it but it starting to cost me with late payments from them...

[Jack Wallace]

5k a month turnover, but how much profit? if they are witholding payments it can end up costing more than you make.

If it were me i would sit down and do the sums. if the profit ended up being too small i would dump, but if it were still fairly good I would have serious words and maybe tell them work stops when debt reaches a certain amount and will resume once settled.
 

[darren clarke]

i have a hotel like this and i does my head in, and am planning on dumping it soon  just waiting to do this next clean  get paid  and unless they change the way they pay me  they dumped

[Wc Solutions]

payments are always made just always very late with alot of chasing, as i said its patchy bad n good.

good earner and weather doesnt play a part ...

just wanted to see if anyone had a long term solution to this...

[Perfect Windows]

When you rebid, tell them the price is £7,500 (or whatever), you'll offer a 33% discount for payment within 21 days and that you will enforce those terms.

Then if you have to take them to court you have a cast-iron case and it's an amount that's worth it.

Vin

[Dave Willis]

What great advice except you'll probably lose the job anyway to someone cheaper
Could you not simply add a late payment penalty to your contract?

[Perfect Windows]

What great advice except you'll probably lose the job anyway to someone cheaper

Erm, think it through for one second and you'll see that's not true.

If someone came to you and said I'll reroof your house for £7,500 and give you a 33% discount if you pay us within 21 days, would you rather use someone who quoted you £6,000?  I doubt it.  You'd take the first offer and make damned sure you paid the £5,000 in time.

Vin

[formb]

We do a job for a large London based cleaning company, call it sub work i guess.

Anyway its the daily cleaning of a large furniture store with monthly window cleaning ...

We supply the kit and do the job, agreement was 4 weekly invoice to be put on the payroll - so we are supposed to be paid every 4 weeks like full time staff would do.

goes through patches of good payments and patches of bad late payments...

i ring up - no good - talking to the monkeys

i email - no reply

i write - no reply

i would dump it but its worth alot of money per month!

any ideas guys

I was in a very similar situation 2 years ago with a cleaning company doing 1 off builders cleans.

I'd wait ages for my cheque chasing every day etc, I tried charging for late payments but that did not speed any thing up.

In the end, when I was asked to price a new hotel for them I stuck in a ridiculous price and hey presto, they were someone else's problem.

I've heard that the cleaning company have gone bust now....

[luther1]

I don't have one commercial job that payment terms are kept too. If i attempted any legal nonsence with any of my jobs then i should imagine i won't be cleaning them next month.
If someone offers you discount then they are too expensive first off. Thats a double glazing trick isn't it?
I have probably the most high profile commercial contract in my city and have done it for over 10 years and i won that because the other window cleaner that i was up against(after all the others were eliminated) offered to do the first clean for free. The company said that there is no such thing as a free lunch,somewhere along the line they would pay for that free clean. I was considerably dearer than him too.

[Dave Willis]

That's my thoughts exactly. Vins idea is a good one but whenever I've had similar discounts offered to me I normally walk away. Same with cars - pay x amount if you buy it this afternoon that kind of thing.

[Rob_Mac]

I have started working for the largest privately owned buiding company in the country.

Initially I was called in last minute, literally no notice, can you be in Durham tomorrow morning. I'm in Stoke. That sort of thing!!

Did about 6 projects for them but they weren't paying. The next time they phoned I demanded payment and told them there would be no further work until they paid up.

What is the situation now?

Pricing work off plan and getting paid on time. I sent a very sharp letter to one of their QS's and got a director involved in my outstanding payment issues.

I am owed a heck of a lot of money from them at the moment but nothing is overdue and they keep giving me more work.

These aren't worth a couple of hundred quid jobs they are worth several thousands of pounds at a time.

Get firm with them. If you have nothing to lose then you could gain everything but word it correctly!!

Rob