Small businesses are prime targets for invoices being left unpaid. Unlike a large business with a dedicated accounting department, small business owners often manage their accounts themselves or use a bookkeeper on occasion. This makes it exceedingly difficult to monitor and manage invoices, as well as outlay ongoing fees for an accountant.
Additionally, while an accountant or bookkeeper is equipped to ‘balance your checkbook’, trying to recover money that’s unpaid is an entirely different matter.
When you’re a small business, any unpaid amount is felt that much more acutely. If you don’t have the resources to constantly spend time chasing non-payment of invoices, the thought of recovering outstanding amounts becomes far more arduous.
The pivotal question, is what can you do as a small business owner? The Australian government explores this issue in the following article entitled “what to do when you haven’t been paid”.
Refusing clients and customers to pay for completed work is a strain, both financially and emotionally. Business News Daily raised an important issue highlighting that an “unpaid invoice can hurt your business”. This is why it’s imperative to take action if you want to be paid.
One of the aspects that makes this situation onerous is that as a small business you want to retain good client relationships. Attempting to recover unpaid bills is a fast way to jeopardize a once, good client relationship. However, is a client who does not pay really worth having? It’s a far better strategy to develop new client relationships, leading to successful payments than wasting copious amounts of time chasing invoices.
