Invoicing

[cmorris]

Short of invoicing by credit card, how often would you invoice for weekly grass cutting i.e. each cut, twice per month, monthly and what terms i.e. upon receipt, net 10 days, etc.?

[Scaper-S2k]

Monthly, net 30 days.

[Team Gopher]

Hi cmorris,

Another option is you could split your customer base in half. Invoice one group mid-month and the other at the end of the month. That can help to improve your cash flow.

[Bikehigh]

I bill monthly, and the invoice is payable upon receipt. I make it clear to the customer when I take them on that I invoice monthly for our mutual conveniece. I am not invoiucing monthly to finance their landscaping. Of course I don't really expect any of my customers to pay on the day they receive the invoice, but I receive easily half of my payments by the end of the first week after sending out the invoices. The other half I usually receive by the 17th. There are a few customers that send out their payments religiously on the 15th, and that's cool. If I haven't received a payment by the 18th, the customer gets a call. I've only had one customer that took 30 days or more to pay, and they did it to me twice last year. They're getting a 25% rate increase next year, if I even decide to keep them on as a customer. If I do jobs where I invest a fair amount of capital, such as mulch or extensive plantings, those jobs are payable upon completion.

Net 30? Seeing how by the time I invoice some of the service will have already been done a month earlier, net 30 terms doesn't seem very fare to me, and not too good for my cash flow.

Invoicing weekly or twice monthly is just too much work. Net 10 is cool, but payable upon receipt works out to be roughly the same by average.

[RRS]

I bill maintenance monthly. One time jobs are billed upon completion. Anything over $2500 requires half down with net on completion. In 2005 I'm not taking any customers that won't except an annual contract. The year after that we're only taking full service customers. Everyone else can fight over the rest.

[mariner]

In 2005 I'm not taking any customers that won't except an annual contract. The year after that we're only taking full service customers. Everyone else can fight over the rest.

My plans exactly. I used contracts this year and it worked out well. If they aren't willing to sign then they'll probably screw you anyhow.

[knowltondata]

I bill maintenance monthly. One time jobs are billed upon completion. Anything over $2500 requires half down with net on completion. In 2005 I'm not taking any customers that won't except an annual contract. The year after that we're only taking full service customers. Everyone else can fight over the rest.

Be carefull about the amount down you ask for. Some states (like CA) won't allow over 1000 down. But please don't just trust what i say, find for yourself.