Take a deposit on anything material-heavy
If you are fronting material cost, you are financing your customer at zero interest. A deposit that covers materials plus a share of first-week labor removes most of that exposure.
Say it early, at the estimate stage, where it reads as normal practice rather than a sign of trouble.
Invoice the day the job closes
The single biggest delay in most trade businesses is the days between finishing work and sending the invoice. Nobody pays an invoice that has not been sent.
If the accepted estimate can convert into an invoice in one action, the job gets billed at the property. If billing means retyping everything on a Saturday, it happens late — or twice a month in a painful batch.
Shorten the terms and say them plainly
Net 30 is a habit inherited from commercial work. For residential jobs, due on receipt or net 7 is entirely normal and dramatically shortens the cycle.
Print the due date as an actual date, not a number of days. 'Due 14 March' is acted on; 'net 14' is filed.
Make paying effortless
Every extra step between wanting to pay and having paid costs you days. A payment link in the invoice beats bank details; bank details beat a cheque; a cheque beats 'call the office'.
Offer the method your customer already uses. The convenience fee is almost always cheaper than the float.
Let reminders do the chasing
Chasing money is the task owners postpone most, because it feels adversarial. Automated reminders remove the emotion: a polite note before the due date, one on the day, and a firmer one after.
By the time a human needs to make a call, the invoice is genuinely overdue and the conversation is legitimate — not awkward.
- Reminder three days before the due date.
- Reminder on the due date.
- Follow-up at 7 and 14 days overdue.
- Personal call only after the sequence has run.
Watch the age of your receivables weekly
A weekly glance at what is outstanding and how old it is prevents the quarterly shock. Anything past 30 days needs a decision, not another reminder.
Tracked consistently, this one habit usually pulls two to three weeks out of the average payment cycle within a couple of months.