She’s got bucket loads of talent, universal appeal and is one of our favourite ever carpool karaokes! Now, small businesses too are joining the Adele fan club with a parady version of her hit song Chasing Pavements. Although this one is about chasing late invoices – and it’s called Chasing Payments.
Xero Supports Prompt Payers
Cloud accounting software provider Xero has delivered the initiative – and it’s more than the music video. In face it’s an entire website dedicated to chasing payments at: http://chasingpayments.com.
It comes after research revealed 52% of small businesses worry about late payments and that up to 64% of invoices are paid late. This leads to a loss in productivity for some business owners and a total of up to 1.5 days per month chasing late payments.
The site features, as mentioned above, a parody of Adele’s hit Chasing Pavements; the video is tongue in cheek and very cheesy but it gets the message across! The website also contains numerous insights via blog posts about late payment statistics, advice on getting paid promptly and useful tools including links to Government payment advice such as this page on invoicing.
Finally, our favourite feature of the community is the “Thank a Prompt Payer” tool. Click on this and you can fill in the details of a prompt payer to feature them on the website and acknowledge their good payment reputation.
Helpful Advice
The website lists lots of helpful advice for getting payments made to your business on time. Some points we found particularly useful include;
• Do your research: Check out Companies House for financial history and consider a service like Experion or Graydon when signing up a new client
• Clear terms: Ensure your payment terms are clear, understood and signed off
• Invoice on time: The relationship goes both ways – ensure to invoice on time
• Multiple payment options: Making it as easy as possible to pay can help speed things up
• Don’t feel bad about chasing: There’s no harm in reminding someone politely and courteously that a payment is due or overdue
What We Think
We love this initiative by Xero – the positive impact of rewarding prompt payers and the brilling advice and resource links provide endless help for small businesses. Chasing Payments just got a lot easier!
Castle Hill House