Unpaid Business Invoices

Regardless of the size of your business, having unpaid invoices are considered a great inconvenience for the company.

Therefore, you need to put some strategies in place in order to ensure that unpaid invoices do not affect the sustainability of your business. It might sound a bit dramatic, but it definitely deserves the time and effort.

Unpaid business invoices can affect almost everything from interrupting cash flow to the operational activity of your business.

If too many unpaid invoices are accrued, then it WILL affect your profitability. This means you won’t be able to pay suppliers, vendors, and employees, which result in reducing your reputation among your business personnel and clients.

Thus, dealing with unpaid business invoices requires your immediate attention, but you might be wondering how?  Our expert team of debt collectors have created the following strategies which will help you discover a way to clear all your unpaid bills.

Ensure That You Have Followed The Right And Legal Procedure, And Then Proceed Politely

When confronted with an unpaid invoice, many business owners have jumped to conclusions and begin spamming your customer with threatening or nasty messages.

With this in mind, you need to make sure that you have followed the right and legal procedure for dealing with unpaid business invoices.

The main rules of this are that you should make sure that you have sent the invoice to the right person at the correct address. You should also confirm that the terms and conditions of payment are clear as well as the total amount due.

It would be a tremendously embarrassing moment for you to realise that it was your fault for sending the wrong amount of debt owed, or to have made another mistake.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for the unpaid invoice, for example invoices can sometimes be lost by the client, or maybe a client is out of town or dealing with any emergency.

Therefore, before losing your temper, you need to deliver a brief follow-up email written in a polite tone. This could begin with something like “just checking in…”.

Thus, an email like this can increase the chances of getting your invoice paid faster.

Before sending any emails, make sure that you don’t use phrases which may be inflammatory, as it will help maintain a good relationship with your client in the future.

Offer A Full Settlement Scheme And Charge For Penalty’s

When you offer your customers and clients a discount deal or full settlement scheme for early payments, they will be encouraged to pay their invoices well before the due date.

However, bear in mind that it is relatively uncommon to provide a one to two percent discount on the whole amount of invoice if your customers can pay within 10 minutes. But one should know that not all clients and customers are motivated by an incentive scheme.

Hence, you can motivate them by charging a penalty after the due date. It will make customers pay their bills faster and allow you to resolve the financial problems that you might be suffering from in your business.

You probably don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you cannot even pay your bills that might be incurred when customers were late in paying their dues.

Make Use Of Collection Agency, Mediation, Arbitration, Court

If you are still suffering from your unpaid business invoice, you need to take some serious action, especially if it has been over 90 days since issuing the invoice. When it becomes less and less likely that the owed debt will be paid back, then you should use the services of a debt collection agency to assist you in getting your invoices paid on time.

Firstly, if you have a valid contract, you need to review it carefully as it will be a key document to help with getting your payments.

If your clients are local, you can seek the help of business mediation services. This process will include an experienced and trained mediator, who can handle the situation and resolve the dispute as soon as possible.

Occasionally it might happen that the customers simply do not want to pay as they are going through some kind of financial instability. If this is the case, it may be appropriate for you to provide them with a 3–6-month long payment plan.

If you choose to do this, make sure you make everything clear in a carefully worded email, which encourages them to pay back their bills as fast as possible whilst being respectful of their position. 

Unpaid Business invoices are something that every business must focus on preventing. Letting them happen can affect the operational activities of the business. Due to a lack of cash flow, you might not be able to pay your creditors, suppliers, or vendors, which can affect your ability to provide your services to your clients’.

These are the top strategies you need to consider if you are not getting your business invoices paid on time.