Unpaid invoice (small amount)

[ahsan]

Hi

I have customer who owe me £200 for some printing and artowrk, the fact is I knew him before he came and asked for his job so there was some trust (no written contract). Anyways, my mistake I didn't take advance and completed his job and deliver it on time. I even handed over source file to him as well.

Now its been month and he's not paying, and not willing to pay either. Keep dodging my calls, bringing lame excuses, total crap. The problem is he's somewhere where I can't go daily to see him in person.

I was wondering, whether I put this in bad debts and lesson learnt. or if chase it than what would be best option?

Thanks for advice.:)

[Shaun_Pearce]

I can get that debt back for you....

[maxine]

Hiya

have you sent a formal letter before action?

[ahsan]

Hi Maxine

I havn't sent any letter yet, I was trying to sort things out politely so far.

[profitxchange]

Do not be soft on people who do not pay - they are not good customers. One needs to be businesslike and assertive - lots of good advice on this forum if you look.

[ahsan]

dramatic change in situation, the client has paid the invoice and eventually paid more than what he owed. There were few invoices before we settled on final, yet he paid for the higher one, most probably by mistake. Now its my turn:cool:

[coultog]

To be worrying after such a short amount of time seems a tad premature.

It's relatively common for invoices to up to three months in certain sectors.

[maxine]

Glad you got paid Ahsan but agree with coultog that one month is not very long and whether you give 30 day terms or not, people will try and take that long to pay to fit in with thier own business cashflow especially when you have already parted with the product or service.

Perhaps you can have a look now at your procedures for giving credit in the first place to check you are comfortable with it and have built the costs into your pricing to cover any future bad debt costs etc.