Excuses For Not Getting Paid Embroidery Project

You don’t make any money until you get paid!  This is an indisputable fact.  No matter what the numbers on the invoice say, or how loudly you brag about that big sale you made, the truth is in your bank account and nowhere else.  Excuse, me if you haven’t gotten paid yet, there is nothing in your bank account.  Thus, you have to work just as hard (if not harder) at getting paid as you do at making the sale in the first place.  It’s amazing at how quick customers are to place an order, as long as they don’t have to make any financial commitment to go along with it.  That’s a bad omen, as there is no risk on their part only yours.

I am a firm believer in getting paid in advance!  In my experience I have heard every excuse in the book in regards to not getting paid on time.  It’s amazing how creative some customers can get with this.  Thus I have compiled a list of my all time favorite excuses for not paying the bill.

I remember calling one particular corporate client to discuss their past due account.  The person to whom I was referred had this to say, “I’m sorry, the person who writes the check is not in the office.”  To which I replied, “and when will this person be back?” assuming of course that the unnamed individual was out to lunch or something like that.  The voice on the other end responded with “we aren’t sure, she is out on medical leave right now.”

You can imagine my dismay!  How in the heck are they running their (rather large) business with only one person that can write checks and that person being out of the office indefinitely?  Of course I asked for the Manager, etc, etc but no matter who I spoke to, I got the same stupid excuse.

That’s one of the problems with a corporate entity, so many of the employees hold such specialized positions that it’s hard to get anything accomplished.  In this case, the run-around continued until the “check-writer” finally returned to work.

Definitely a case that supports getting paid in advance!

Here is another common excuse: “we lost your invoice, please send another one.”  It’s perhaps the most frequent one that you will hear from a customer who has a past due invoice.  You will also notice that they never call YOU to ask for another one.  Rather it’s a quick response to your inquiry that requires little creativity on their part.

So when you get this excuse, you need to address it immediately.  You can always fax it or email it, but chances are it will just get “lost” again.  If at all possible hand-deliver the replacement invoice to the responsible party.  But don’t expect payment on the spot, as it will probably have to be reviewed and approved before payment can be rendered. And then of course, the person who writes the checks will be out of the office…

On the flip-side, people really do lose invoices, so before you start screaming give the customer a second chance to redeem himself/herself.  Also make sure that when you complete an order that the invoice is not shoved into a box of garments, as it probably really will get lost.

But there is always a better way: get paid in advance!

Moving on down the list, here is another one of those great Corporate Account excuses: “we only cut checks once per month and yours didn’t make it in.”  This goes hand-in-hand with the “we lost your invoice” excuse as they will request another invoice to be sent so they can get it into the batch for next month.

You will also notice that no one ever explained that there was a cut-off date for submitting invoices, usually two weeks before the date they write the checks.  In addition, there is no specific method to check that your invoice is actually part of the batch for which checks are being written.

To be honest, some large corporate entities pride themselves on finding creative ways of keeping their money in their pocket.  They throw up roadblocks everywhere you turn and complicate matters even more by creating a bureaucratic tangle of policies and procedures.

Again, the best solution is getting paid in advance, followed by NOT letting the order leave your shop without full payment being received.

But there are more classic excuses and I really love this one. “We were waiting on you to send an invoice.”  This implies that one was never sent, which is similar to but different from the “lost your invoice” excuse.  The “lost” excuse is acknowledgement that you probably did send something and that they made a mistake to which they are sorry, (but not sorry enough to rush the check.)

By comparison, the “waiting on you” syndrome implies that the customer has no fault in the matter and that the problem is on your end.

We discovered this approach to delaying payment the hard way.  Our standard practice was to place a copy of the invoice in the TOP of the box of finished goods, so it would be the first thing the customer saw upon opening the package.  When the excuse was first delivered, we pointed out to the customer that they did indeed receive an invoice.  Their reply was that the only thing they knew of was a packing slip, which had been discarded.

There is a lot of difference between a packing slip and an invoice!

So we took a new approach – collect full payment before delivery of goods!

Okay on to the best of the best.  Drum roll please… and the number one excuse for not paying in a timely fashion: “the check is in the mail.”  I can’t tell you how many times a customer has claimed that they sent a check a long time ago when confronted with an overdue bill.  It’s so creative, as it implies that he/she took care of the problem and that someone at the Postal Service is responsible for the delay.  In fact, customers have been known to get indignant over the matter, suggesting that perhaps you are harassing them over something that is really your fault.  (Of course, asking for a copy of the cancelled check for verification usually turns the tables a bit.)

There are traditionally two parts to this excuse, the first being “surprise and disbelief” that you had not yet received the check and the second being “let’s give the postal service a little more time,” suggesting that 30 days isn’t long enough to deliver a letter.  Believe me, if the check had been mailed on time and was not yet received after several weeks, giving it a few more days ain’t going to change anything, except to make the past due amount be a little more paste due.

The proper thing at this point is to tell the customer to cancel the check and overnight another one.  To which you will probably get a response that the person who writes the checks is out on maternity leave…

Get paid in advance!  It solves a lot of problems.