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Perhaps you mean standing orders? I have customers pay by standing order, sometimes just a regular amount which is then balanced every 3 months if extras are required or others which are a regular amount as the contracts are fully inclusive.
The majority of our customer's pay by standing order with the larger contracts we worked out how many we would do - i.e. weekly or fortnightly from March until November then monthly or every 10 days December until February- then average out the amount into 12 monthly payments. The smaller domestic contracts set up two different standing orders for the growing season and then the winter period.
Works very well, still send out invoices and receipts but it is good for cash flow and not chasing customers.
I'm wondering does anyone use Payment terminals for cash jobs such as a lawn round?
I looked into this - and Did a survey of my customers - But I found that as about 60% already pay online, 20% cash on the day - I would be canablising the 60% who pay online.
Most customers are not in when I visit their property either, so the terminal would not help, and the elderly (at least on my round) seem to not own cards, or prefer cheque........
Robbie Lynn said:
Almost all my work is invoiced electronically now, and most pay electronically. It's a real pain to go to the bank with the odd three or four cheques a month! I'm saving a fortune (well, a few pounds a month) on stamps and printer cartridges.
On another note would you consider charging customers for invoicing via paper paying by cheque. I notice many energy and phone companies do sometimes around £1.50 a month. I consider this to be like Ryanair!!! but there is no charge for email/ online accounting.
They do how offer a 10% discount if paying via direct debit not sure if it aplies to electronic payments.
My online accounts package offer direct debit processing but as you would need to work out the annual spend and divide it by 12 to give a monthly fee it could be tricky each visit as they would need to set up a winter direct debit and a summer one if not (as most of my customers want monthly visits from end of october to March rather than fortnightly which helps with shorter days) as it does not allow for missed visits due to illness or weather & if the customer wishes to cancel one or two visits.
All our 'electronic generation' customers receive a pdf bill e mailed to them monthly and they pay by direct bank transfer, better than a standing order as you can alter the amount as necessary. For every one else it's cash as we got fed up having a pile of cheques sitting around waiting for us to find time to get to the bank,
My clients pay online via Internet Banking rather than setting up standing orders or direct debits. I use a similar model lets say 4hrs per week March - October 1hr per week Winter, divided by 12 as a starter, if any extra work I.E. fallen trees, broken fences, charged extra.
But that also applies equally to cash!
Phil Crossley said:
Could not live without our card terminal :)
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