Vent: Companies are making it harder to invoice

[HoosierBuff]

This trend seems to be continuing. My larger company customers keep on making it harder to invoice them.

There are two different ways this is happening:

1. Need to send invoices to a certain address only, and, they must be in a certain format. One vendor requires the email subject line and in certain text in an email. Another vendor requires all invoices to be sent as a PDF (which, freshbooks doesn't do), another requires PDF, and sending a bar code along with the invoice.

2. Some other vendors are like "Congratulations, you are now in our electronic payment system, and the vendor will be taking 2% of your invoices going forward".

These are both pretty annoying (and unfortunately, SOP for so many big companies). #2 is particularly annoying, "Hi, we'd like to make our lives easier, and charge you 2% for the privilege.

 

[Conor Treacy]

I haven't run into any of those situations recently. I know a few years ago we had a client that said their business does not pre-pay for work, and they are Net-45 billing. We let them know that our company doesn't operate that way, and we would bill them and when we received the money we would start the work. And that's what happened.

I understand places wanting to make life easier in how they make payments, but I don't tell my lawn care company how I'm willing to pay them. If I want their service, then I have to pay using their methods.

I understand it's hard to turn down money, but keep in mind that you are the one offering the service that they need. If they have additional fees, that's on them, and you shouldn't be penalized for that.

 

[Mary Bowling]

Carrie Hill and I ran our business strictly through PayPal. We were happy to pay PayPal's percentage to avoid all the other BS. Everyone has a major credit card they can use with PayPal. The few times we agreed to some other arrangement, we regretted it.

I'd add a PITA (pain in the a$$) fee for anyone who made me jump through hoops to get paid.

 

[djbaxter]

Carrie Hill and I ran our business strictly through PayPal. We were happy to pay PayPal's percentage to avoid all the other BS. Everyone has a major credit card they can use with PayPal. The few times we agreed to some other arrangement, we regretted it.

I'd add a PITA (pain in the a$$) fee for anyone who made me jump through hoops to get paid.

Same here, although I do give an option to pay the PayPal invoice via Interac direct debit transfer and a few will use that.

 

[Tim Colling]

Same here, sort of, except that we use Wave Apps to charge all clients, and they agree in our contracts that we have the authority to charge their cards for invoices when due, without waiting for them to pay their invoices.

I've done a lot of things in my career. At one point, I was the CFO for a small chemical manufacturer that sold ultra-high purity dopant materials to semiconductor manufactures. They are almost ALL very slow payers. We worked hard to collect from them.

I may be the only person you know that has put IBM on credit hold(!)

 

[HoosierBuff]

Yeah, very early on in my career I worked for a company that sold to Ford Motor Company - it was pretty much 90 days, no matter what you did.

I've just seen it more and more, and I'm a bit vexed by the "for your convenience we are now paying you electronically" and taking 2%. What kind of jerk in A/R agrees to do this to their suppliers.

I can't walk away. . . too much good money there.

 

[EmilyW]

This hasn't affected me, but my 2 cents--if you are newly charged a new fee (2%) with the new method, up your price by 2%. Also, I'm not familiar with Freshbooks, but most programs you can click "print" then within the print dialog box, convert to a PDF to save. You might try that if you haven't already! Best of luck.

 

[HoosierBuff]

Good lord. Another one, a small division of a large company, and they want me to add a barcode to the invoice, and fax it to them.

 

[Contractor]

Good lord. Another one, a small division of a large company, and they want me to add a barcode to the invoice, and fax it to them.

I just won't do that. I gave up on faxing years ago because I was sick of paying $1 per page at the local convenience store, and I refused to buy one and a landline to run it.

If a company insists on faxes, I insist on going elsewhere.

 

[EmilyW]

Good lord. Another one, a small division of a large company, and they want me to add a barcode to the invoice, and fax it to them.

Sometimes certain industries still require archaic methods--like faxing. I have experience in the financial industry and see this often, and it has to do with regulators and compliance, it's really outside the hands of the local offices. It's a fine line of how much to accommodate and how much will just drive you crazy! At that rate, it would be simpler and cheaper to mail it. As crazy as that is, maybe that's an option? It solves a lot of problems in the financial industry.