You run your business with integrity, which is why your clients come back to you on a regular schedule. You provide a service and lay out your terms effectively, allowing your client to have expectations, which are met regularly. Then it comes time for the bill, and this is where you can lose your clients with whom you worked so hard to gain trust. Suddenly, details are missing, billed hours are more than expected, and the overall process of receiving a bill took much longer than anticipated. The problem many businesses have is the idea that the job is done – before the final bill is provided and paid.

Typical questions often asked about charging late fees by small business owners include: Should you charge a late fee?  How much should I charge? Will it alienate your customers? The answer is always, "Yes! Charge enough to cover your costs. If it alienates them, that's OK, they owe you money."

Sometimes, no matter how amazing the work that’s done, businesses are not getting paid in a timely manner, or worse, not at all. It often has nothing to do with the quality of work, but has everything to do with the pattern and style of invoicing. Your diligence in invoicing can be as important as the quality of work completed. And while your business is not invoicing, your business does depend upon invoicing being effective.   Rather than recreating the wheel, follow some of these simple steps to insure successful collection of your money almost every time.

Fewer and fewer small businesses are run in an office or a brick and mortar establishment in this day and age. Much of the time, owners aren’t in a chair but are out in the field getting work done, shaking hands, and dealing with customer issues that may arise. Often, these small businesses are maybe a one or two person show, leaving the business of getting paid left behind. These business owners need to access their backroom records on a moment’s notice anywhere and anytime.