Emily Clarke

How Often Should I Send Customers Payment Reminders?

Getting paid is one of the nicest "perks" of running a business, but seeking payment can be a delicate process. On the one hand, you don't want to give the impression that your business is only focused on making money, but on the other, you need to get paid to have the cash flow to fund your business. This balancing act becomes all the more challenging when customers take their time getting payments to you.

Sending Out Reminders

One way to deal with this type of situation is to send out payment reminders to customers. Freelance workers usually do this by using software and merchant services for contractors. Automated reminders can be set to trigger when a certain amount of time has gone by without payment. Freelancers rely on software and merchant services for contractors because they usually don't have the support of an accounting or billing department.

If you run a business, however, you might consider working with your accounting department to create a payment reminder system. Reminders can be crafted in such a way as to remind customers of payments due without seeming like your business only cares about money. The wording used in your reminders plays a key role in supporting this mission.

Sending Out Reminders Too Often or Too Seldom

In terms of balancing your timeline for sending reminders, you don't want to send them too often or too seldom. Sending too many reminders may create an adversarial relationship between your business and its customers. Sending out too few reminders can lead to missed payments and reduced cash flow.

What's the Right Approach?

The right approach is the one that demonstrates value to the customer while ensuring your business gets paid. There's no one specific amount of reminders or timeline that applies to all businesses.

As a rule of thumb, consider sending reminders to arrive at least one week before the current due date. This will usually happen once per month, but this will depend on your billing schedule. If you work with collections agencies, you will also want to consider sending progressively serious warnings about unpaid bills as they move closer and closer to being sent to your collections agency.

Author Resource:-

Emily Clarke writes about sales and business automation tools for construction companies and contractors. You can find her thoughts at customer financing tool blog.