It can be very frustrating to have unpaid invoices. As a business owner, you’ve already rendered services and you expect to get paid. Maybe you sold products and the invoice is for that cost. Either way, you feel that you’re being ripped off because someone is not paying you as they should.
The first thing you want to do in a situation like this is to make sure that your emotions don’t get the better of you. Don’t assume that this is intentional. Don’t make threatening phone calls or send email or text messages. Instead, follow these steps.
Make sure there were no oversights
The first thing to do, even if you’re confident that you didn’t make any mistakes, is just to double-check that you didn’t overlook anything. Did the invoice actually get sent out properly? Did that invoice make it clear when the person needed to pay? Be sure that all of your information checks out with what you believe occurred.
Send a polite follow up
Once you know that you did send the invoice to the right person at the right address and that all the other steps were followed, then you can contact them again and politely indicate that they still need to pay the outstanding balance. It could simply be that they forgot or that they’ve been busy. In many cases, a secondary follow-up will be enough to get them to take action.
Look into your legal options
If that still doesn’t work, then it may be time to begin looking into your legal options. There are specific steps you can take to work toward collecting the debt that is owed to you. You need to make sure that you understand exactly what legal tactics to utilize and what mistakes to avoid.
