5 Easy Ways to Get Your Clients to Pay on Time

When you’re trying to grow your business, any client is a great client, right? Not if you spend valuable time chasing down their payments. Myron Rivers, payment processing company and Dayton Area Chamber member, Infintech, shares five strategies to make sure your clients pay on time.

#1 – Educate Your Customers on How You Want to Get Paid

Make sure your customers know two things up front: how and when you want to be paid. This includes explaining the different forms of payment you accept. If you offer any payment incentives, make sure they know this early on.

#2 – Work Directly with Your Client’s AP Department

Typically, when you’re signing a contract with someone, you’re not speaking with a member of their accounts payable department. Make sure you get a contact name and number for someone in that department so you can introduce yourself and find out what the process is.
This way, if there’s a hiccup or delay, you can go straight to the source who can help move things along.

#3 – Make It Easy for Your Clients to Pay You

Your clients shouldn’t have to search through emails or scour your website to learn how to pay you. If you have an online payment portal, include a link to it in every invoice and make the payment button easy to find from the homepage of your website.
“If you have the easiest payment method, you’re going to get paid first,” Myron explains. “While you may incur additional fees to make this happen, you’re keeping up with the times and making your customers happy.”

#4 – Offer an Incentive

Whether it’s cash flow or cumbersome processes, there’s a variety of reasons customers pay late. Try offering some sort of incentive – like a discount or free merchandise – to clients who pay early or who use a preferred payment method, and highlight the incentive on every invoice as a reminder.

#5 – Put New Accounts on a Credit Card

“I always tell people to put every new account on a credit card for at least the first six to nine months, until they have figured out some adequate payment history with their new merchants,” Myron says. This way, you can automatically deduct a payment after the good or service has been provided.

Be sure to clearly state when the payment is due or when it will be automatically deducted (if they’re on a recurring payment cycle) in the customer contract.

Learn More about How to Get Paid Faster:
Contact Dayton Area Chamber partner Infintech.