Late Payments

I run my own small business and it frequently annoys me how customers pay their bills late. I usually invoice them within a day of sending them the completed work and I give them a month to pay. And yet they can’t seem to get organized and/or to respect me so they can pay me on time. It is a waste of my time to have to keep reminding them and I find it offensive and obnoxious. You would never go to a grocery store or an antiques shop and take the products and then suggest paying a month or two later, or perhaps not at all.

Prunella knows exactly who I am talking about when I mention a recent situation regarding late payment: I had given a lecture somewhere and they’d know I was coming for months, so you’d think they could have cut a check in advance or at least organized themselves to do so shortly after I’d been there. But, no, I had to keep reminding them to pay me and I finally received a check close to a month later.

I pay my bills on time, but I can’t do so unless my clients pay me on time. So why can’t they show me (and the economy!) some respect and pay their bills in a timely fashion?

--Curly