Collecting payments 101 for small businesses

Okay, I confess. I sued a preacher for nonpayment on his bill. Yes, we went to court and I won. I’ll probably put off a small blue flame in hell for that, but my business needed to pay its employees. I had bills to pay myself.

This can be a trying time for small business owners trying to get ahead in the world. Uncle Bernie and everyone he knows, along with some of your most loyal customers, are having hard times. Did I have a tough time collecting on the preacher? Yes, but he was the rare case. Nearly all of my clients paid on time, which allowed me to operate the business. Here’s the strategy we used to collect on customers who dragged their tails:

Organize
1) First thing you have to do is establish and maintain a billing system that will allow you to track outgoing invoices and match them with incoming payments. We numbered our invoices and dated them numerically 2009-01-30 and moved them between Paid and To Be Paid folders. Fairly simple. What was most important was getting the bills out ASAP. We sent them out the day after the service was provided.

Play nice
2) For the first 30 days past due, we were empathetic, listened to customers’ stories, especially our most loyal customers. Sometimes collecting can be a phone call saying, “I noticed we didn’t receive you payment? What can we do to assist?” In a small town, it sometimes meant a walk down the street or around the corner to pick up a paper check. (This was back in the day.)

If the bill went beyond 30 days past due we tacked on an additional 3 percent fee every month. We made calls every other week beginning at the 30 day mark. If an account went 60 days, we conveyed it to our agency, which stepped it up a notch.

Accounts that reached the 30-day late mark were reported as such to the credit bureaus and this was reiterated in a letter we sent to the customer when the unpaid bill was forwarded to the collection agency. They collection agency made its money based on money collected. We hoped for anything and sometimes received a payment in full or sometimes a settlement. The agency made a percentage of the money collected.

Cracking down
3) We gave the collection agency another 30 days to collect. If the bill went unpaid at the 90 day mark, we increased the penalty to 5 percent and I walked over to the courthouse and filed a debt of warrant. In Virginia, the municipality charged a small fee (perhaps $27) and served the business owner with a warrant to appear in small claims court before a judge. This remedied about a third of the claims. The remainder, including the preacher mentioned earlier, went to court. We never lost a court case because we carried original signed contracts, copies of services rendered and copies of checks, if partial payments were made. It was usually cut and dry and the customer ended up paying court costs ($40 or so) as well. Did this cost us customers? Yes, it did; however, when you’re operating on a shoestring budget and have employees who have to feed their families, we forced to downsize or collect on unpaid bills.

Depending on the state, a business can recover up to $5000 in small claims court. Filing costs average about $40 and you don’t need a lawyer. If the court finds in your favor and the customer fails to pay, you’ll be entitled to garnish their wages or bank account to get your money. (For information on filing, go to the National Center for State Courts’ site at ncsonline.org. Search the links in the Small Claims State Links.)