- Enquiry
- Quote
- Agree
- Work
- Invoice
- Paid
Working for Them Again
A customer who paid eventually is not the same as a customer who did not pay, and treating them identically loses work that was worth having.
For a software-side reference alongside this discussion of payment follow-up, disputes, and small-business administration, Monitask has this resource.
The four questions
One. Did they pay in the end? The single largest distinction. Slow and paid is a cash flow problem; fast and unpaid is a different category entirely.
Two. Why were they slow? A firm squeezed by its own customers is in a chain. A firm that pays everybody late is a policy. The first is circumstance and the second is character.
Three. How did they behave while being chased? Responsive and apologetic is different from silent, and both are different from a complaint that appeared at day sixty.
Four. What did it cost you? The hours, honestly counted, against the margin on the work.
The terms that make it workable
Not a refusal — a structure.
A larger deposit. The direct remedy and the one that costs the customer nothing if they intend to pay.
Shorter stages. More frequent, smaller payments mean less exposure at any point and an earlier signal when something changes.
A smaller balance at the end, so the moment of least leverage involves the least money.
And payment before the next stage starts rather than after it finishes, which converts your exposure from the whole job to one stage.
Present it as how you work now, not as a punishment. "I've moved to staged payments on jobs this size" is a business statement, and it is true if you apply it consistently.
Pricing it instead
Where the customer is worth having and the payment behaviour is a real cost, price for it — and the job that quietly lost money is how you discover it was one.
A customer who takes ninety days is consuming working capital, and that has a value which belongs in the quote rather than in your overdraft.
This is more honest than a surcharge and less confrontational than a conversation about their behaviour, and it leaves the decision with them: they can accept the price or improve the terms.
When not to
Where the money is still outstanding. Work in advance or not at all, and say it plainly.
Where a complaint was manufactured. A customer who invented a defect to avoid paying will do it again, and the next one will arrive earlier.
Where the chasing consumed more than the job earned. That is a calculation rather than a feeling, and it usually points one way.
And where you dreaded the calls. The same reasoning as declining in the first place — reluctance is frequently accurate judgement that has not found its words.
The conversation
Short, forward-looking, without relitigating.
"Happy to look at this. Given how the last one went I'd want a third up front and payment at each stage — is that workable?"
One sentence acknowledging the history, one sentence stating the terms, one question.
No account of how difficult it was, which achieves nothing and makes the terms read as a grievance rather than as a policy.
And accept the answer either way. A customer who declines the terms has made the decision for you, at no cost.
What changed at their end
Worth asking, because it decides which of the terms above are necessary.
A new finance person, a new owner, a customer of theirs who has gone — any of these can turn a chronic late payer into a prompt one or the reverse.
"Is the payment side working better than it was?" is a fair question at quoting stage and produces an honest answer more often than not, because the person you are asking usually found the previous situation frustrating too.
Where the answer is that nothing changed, the terms stand. Where something did, you can price and structure accordingly rather than applying a policy to a situation that has moved.
The customer who improved
Worth noticing, because most firms never revise their view.
A customer marked difficult two years ago may have changed entirely — new people, new systems, a different position — and a supplier still applying the terms from then is pricing a situation that no longer exists.
Review the terms after two clean jobs. Paid on time twice is evidence, and relaxing the structure in response is both fair and commercially sensible: it rewards the behaviour you want and it removes friction from a relationship that is working.
Say it out loud when you do. "The last two have been straightforward, so I've gone back to normal terms." A customer who hears that knows the structure was a response rather than a permanent judgement, and they behave accordingly.
What to write down about them
One line in the customer record after every job.
How long they took, whether anything was queried, and whether you would work for them again. The same file that holds everything else.
Three years in, that line is the most useful information you hold about your own business — because it identifies which customers are actually profitable once the payment behaviour is counted, and that is rarely the same list as the one ranked by invoice value.
Saying no to the repeat
Where the answer is no, say it once and without the history.
"I'm not taking on new work for you at the moment." No explanation, because an explanation invites a negotiation about whether the reason still applies.
It is a harder sentence than the terms conversation and it is occasionally the right one.
The short version
- Slow and paid is a cash flow problem; fast and unpaid is a different category, and the distinction decides everything
- Four questions: did they pay, why were they slow, how did they behave while chased, and what did it cost you
- The answer is a structure rather than a refusal: larger deposit, shorter stages, smaller final balance, payment before each stage
- Present it as how you work now, which is true if you apply it consistently
- Where the behaviour is a real cost and the customer is worth having, price for it and leave the decision with them
- Do not go back where money is still outstanding, where a complaint was manufactured, or where you dreaded the calls
For broader background on payment follow-up, disputes, and small-business administration, see The Wall Street Journal.