Bad payer so pay up front.....

[JMugs]

I print (or printed) mugs for a small cafe that was part of a big hotel chain. only a couple of boxes to a time, approx 10 boxes a year. Always chasing them for payment, the last lot took nearly 3 months over the winter to get paid. So Summer arrives and I get the email can we have the usual order for the end of the week (they always leave it to the last minute to order!), my response was here's an invoice, pay it and your mugs will be printed and dispatched in 24 hours..... they came back and said they wanted a discount as they thought the mugs were expensive and they don't pay until goods received, shame that no mugs then.

Now this is a business with one of those posh banks, not a high street bank, all my other clients pay by bank transfer and on time, this lot send a cheque which they post on a Friday after the last collection, and I have had them unsigned, undated, and defaced.

Am I worried about loosing their business.....umm no, It did make me smile yesterday when they tried the "but we are important" approach.

Janners

[calvinabc]

they think they are doing you a favour.

[Justin]

Good for you. A good lesson is that it's OK to sometimes say "No" and also good sometimes to say "No Way!" :-)

[Paul]

Never open account to anybody. THEY ALL know that to have account open some trust need to be earned. so any new customer should go on pro forma first for few orders. and than you can decide if they are good lot to deal with and open 30 day (or any) account.

[daviddeer]

Switched to pro-forma some time ago. Our usual practice was to invoice with 5% a day interest on late payments. This is enforceable on business to business transactions; and we enforced every time. Just wanted to avoid the hassle of small claims so we do everything - payment on order. After all you wouldn't expect to go to the checkout at asda and tell them you will pay for your shopping in three months!
Why not go into their café and order a Full English and then ask them to send you an invoice.

[mags1892]

I can tell you from experience its the bigger guys that fleece you, Ive had two companies go bust on me in the last 12 month BOTH of which setup again within 48hours. One owed me 8K and one 3K. thats 11k lost with no chance of getting it back. I now dont offer accounts to anyone its not worth the aggravation.

[59viper]

Like it really like that. Extra toast and coffee too

[JMugs]

Update.
A cheque arrived in the post, no covering note or anything. So I emailed them to say once the cheque is cleared I'll print and send the mugs. All done now.

Janners