We have a few clients who are always late on payments no matter what we try. Not just a month, but 6 months or more.

Have any of you done anything like direct their internet traffic to a splash page each time they open a browser that says something like please call the office at xxx-xxxx regarding your account? They can then surf normally, it's just a landing page with a click to continue.

I have the ability to do it, and wanted to know if any of you have ever tried this, and what you think of it?

Love it :-)

I like but tweak one thing: the "click to continue" part

I did do this [Link: remotecentral.com] a while back.

If they are known repeat offenders why are you a) not requiring payment prior to ordering/providing goods and immediately upon completing a service or b) discontinue the relationship altogether ?

Do you get to leave the grocery store with goods without paying? The gas station with a full tank? The...well pretty much anywhere !

what are you taking monthly payments for? are you the ISP?

We are not taking monthly payments. Usually they are service calls which we bill for. The clients are never home, only housekeepers. We try our best to get paid the day of service, but it doesn't always work that way. In my opinion, it's never a good idea to cut off a relationship unless there are extenuating circumstances. You never know when they will refer you, or have more work. Sometimes people just need a little push or reminder.

These people dont have credit cards?

Sorry, Multiple late pays are on you. Service calls get paid up front or they get a credit card pre-authorization.

The splash page thing will just make them angry...

...and if your response is "so what if they are angry, they owe me money"...

...then my response to that is "when they call for service tell them they have a balance due and ask for their credit card number."

If paying their bill makes them angry then they can choose not to and you can finally fire them.

You guys are right. It is on me. We need to focus more on organization for our payment policy. We are working on a policy that we are going to hand out to our clients for every job. We have it in the contract, but I'm not sure if anyone even reads it. This will be easy to read.

Thanks for helping me see the light.

Cool...
Now that you feel like you owe us something, how about posting the easy read for us to steal -- um, I mean 'review' :-)

How do you remind them about the bill? How often?
You can send overdue invoices everyday in the mail.

Sir, We understand you are busy, as are we. Lets setup a service retainer for your project. Last year you required $1200 in service calls, please send $900 with your current payment of $240, which we will charge future service calls against. We will continue to send you your invoices marked as paid, and will alert you when your balance falls below $300.

Some contractors in my area don't do service without a Service Contract set up.

But I know of a company that was well overdue an almost $60k payment. Client wanted the last few things to work, a very reasonable proposition. Integrator would not come out to fix them unless they got paid. Idiot integrator connected to the AMX system and wiped the program.

That ended in litigation.

If a client doesn't pay you stop doing work for them. Or charge them up front in retainer and get a CC agreement.