Occasionally, a customer may fail to pay a sales invoice, or fail to pay it on time. It's helpful to know what you can do in such a case.
Invoice Reminder
If you left Daxto's autopilot enabled, your customer will automatically receive an invoice reminder. This is not the same as a payment reminder.
Get in touch and collaborate
If you have disabled the autopilot, or notice that the customer has not responded to it, proceed as follows. Usually it's enough to briefly remind the customer of the bill; in most cases they simply forgot.
- Contact your customer. Keep in mind that they may have completely forgotten about the invoice, for example, due to circumstances.
- Kindly remind the customer and in the meantime, try to find out if the customer intends to start paying the invoice as soon as possible.
- If the client is momentarily tight on money, consider agreeing on a payment plan. This is often much appreciated because you are thinking along in their difficult situation. In doing so, you also help yourself, because you will eventually get paid without having to be firm.
These steps are aimed at avoiding assumptions and keeping the relationship with your customer as healthy as possible. You never know how much business may follow in the future. Therefore, always engage in consultation, hear about the reason and work together to find a solution.
Mark as doubtful
Does the customer not return your calls or do you have weird gut feelings about this invoice? Then consider marking the invoice as doubtful as soon as possible. That way, Daxto takes into account that this amount may never be paid. This reduces your profits and thus your taxes, and the customer does not notice this. If they pay later, you can undo the doubtful marking.
Marking an invoice as doubtful is very easy in Daxto. From any invoice that is outstanding, you can choose Actions → Mark as doubtful debt at the top of the menu. Your personal Daxto assistant takes care of all the paperwork in the background and you can get back to your work.
Payment Reminder
Daxto's autopilot automatically sends a payment reminder 3, 7 and 11 days after the due date has passed.
Collection agency
If the customer does not want to pay or appears unreachable and the third payment reminder has already been sent a few days ago, you might want to consider using a collection agency. This is obviously an unpleasant situation for everyone. It also often means that you permanently damage your relationship with your customer. So carefully weigh your decision.
Mark as bad debt
Are you still not getting paid despite hiring a collection agency? Then you can mark the sales invoice as bad debt.