HOW TO GET CASH FAST - NO BILLINGS OR RECEIVABLES

[Phil Nilsson]

<center><b> FAST CASH WITH NO ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE</b></center>

Get every customer onto a charge card billing system ... so that each time you perform a service you charge it to their card (each day, weekly, or whenever you want) ... this is 48 hour money for you by wire transfer directly into your checking account)... no trips to make deposit of checks, no mailing out invoices, and the customer doesn't have to pay until later ... this is also your sales journal and billing record ... let the credit card companies do the record keeping for you at a modest "per month" percentage of sales but the important thing is that this is "fast cash" with NO accounts receivables .... in other words THERE IS NO NEED to bill the customer at the end of the month! and NO NEED to CHASE accounts receivables.

<b>One step further for records ...</b>

<b>You can simplify billings</b> if you let the people (banks, credit card companies) do the work for you.

<b>What Work?</b>

1. Billing customers the old way with paperwork in mail

2. Collecting on accounts receivables with statements

3. Tracking late pays, avoid hassles and embarrassing followup calls

4. Banks record sales not you but send you a sales journal statement

5. It's an automatic "guarantee of service quality" for your customer because if they are not happy with your service they are under (no risk) they simply request a chargeback. You can dispute any chargeback if you come in contact with a customer trying to take advantgae of you. This makes your customer feel more (secure) buying from you rather than your competition.

6. <b>Electronic transfers into your account means fast money</b> - you get paid within 48 hours and have cash flow (right now)

7. The cost is low ... a couple percent of gross sales (put it in your price) to have the record keeping done by the bank and credit card comapnies not you.

8. Take this same info directly into YOUR WEB SITE so that your customer can ACCESS their account at any time [themselves] saves you time ... see for themselves what the hard copy bill <b>would have looked like</b> .... HAD you actually mailed a bill to them. Account balance disputes are ENDED for once and for all.



Phil Nilsson
Nilsson Associates Consultants
Visit Lawn Service & Landscaping Book Store

[nlls]

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Great info, Phil, I agree! Have you (heard of anyone) used (using) PayPal to do credit card billing (on a website or not)? I'd like to get into some detail about this with you. . .

[Phil Nilsson]

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GrassMaster (The site Administrator) is the computer geek guy for computer systems ... teknoheads [8)] LOL ... all I know is get active with it because billing your customers using traditional invoicing I believe is on the way out ... (if not gone now?) You need to be in a position to provide the "financing" for all your work. No checks in the mail, no postal delays, no billings, no statements to crank out, no trips to the bank, ... no sales journal to fool with ... and so the story is to spend your time "creating income in the field" not trying to account for or chase money after the fact.

Get the client's credit card number, keep it on file, because it's an inconvenience for you and the customer to bill and pay any other way.

I can't imagine why anybody would want to invest a whole month into the work and then wait another week or two before seeing any cash ... (except for commercial) this requires too much working capital tied up ...

[MOUNTAIN AIR]

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what about atomatic debit from there account
they give you a blank void check and the payment comes out of there account ontime every month

[Phil Nilsson]

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Look into PayPal

http://www.paypal.com/

[indmowing]

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Hi nlls, we used Paypal for a little while and have heard of many people using it. It works fine. We no longer use it due to the fact that we have very low charges in our business and in the spirit of keeping our costs down (so we can pass this onto our contractors).
EFT is fantastic, we use that ALL the time.

Here in Australia, the lawn mowing industry is cash... your customers pay cash on the day, if not, they pay next time. Simple. Commercial customers are on account anyway, and pay at the end of each month for example. So there's no real need for credit cards.

I personally find accounts the easiest part of our business thanks to accounting software. Also, while Phil says it cuts down your book keeping, this would only be so if you had EVERY customer on this system. If you didn't I would have to say things would get harder not easier. Not sure what the bank presents you with, but do they calculate taxes, profit and loss etc.

In our business, the cost of accepting credit cards would be more then postage! And why not send out special offers, or updates on your services with your bills. MARKETING

Just my opinion and how things are here in Aus. EFT is fantastic. Credit Cards are definatly convenient and as Phil said, you can add it to the price, if you want!

Just thought I'd add my say )

Ebony

[Bobby D]

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Phil,

I talked about doing this months ago. I thought it was a great way to make paying easier for the customers and quicker for me. So its nice to hear a topic on this. I will look into it, I just wonder how my customers would feel about it. Experience has taught me that some things sound great in theory but are terrible in practice. I will check it out though and see what it costs.

[grasshopper]

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To me it sounds like a great idea. However, I think you would end up with a few customers that like it and most would be against it at first thought. Then you would run into the problem of having several different payment methods, thus doing the opposite...making the whole process more complicated. I can't see all of your customers jumping all over this right away, especially new ones. Like Phil said though, you would also want ot set up a website where your clients can track it. More costs $$$. Also, w/o a website or a way for them to constantly track payments, they most likely would not be sold on the idea.

[Bobby D]

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Phil,

I really am looking into this. Its about 2% fees to use paypal. Not bad b/c you could make that back in interest on the money in the bank. However, it would cost a lot to build a website with the capability to allow customers to access their accounts online. Do you have any information on this or has anyone out there tried it. I think this could revolutionize the business, but there are some things I think that would make it difficult to work. Customers might be uninclined to give you their credit card number. Again, the issue of linking the online accounts to the database you keep your records in. You wouldn't want to update two data files. Anyone tried this? Phil, do you have any other experience with this?