Now there's a first

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
13,157
Location
Upstate New York
Display Name
Geek on the Hill
A client just emailed me to tell me that he hadn't received his invoice and needed my payment information. (I'd forgotten to make the invoice recurring in my billing software). I almost had to call the paramedics.

Rich
 
He must really need you. :D You need to increase your rates with him.

That is the only explanation, unless he has a mental illness of some kind.
 
I am amazed in my business how many times we have to do that. He probably issued a Purchase Order, knew the work had been done, but can't close out the PO on the accounting system software without a paid invoice posted to match it. That's how we track what we owe.
 
I have reminded vendors that I owe them money. If you did the work and I'm happy with it, I want to compensate you for your effort. Is basic honesty that rare?
 
I think the term we're looking for here is "responsibility". That client was responsible in understanding he/she had something due and paid it.

I do the same thing as do many responsible adults. The people who miss a bill because they never received an invoice and think "Ah well, guess this month was free" are not only morons and oxygen thieves (Russell Brand reference, look it up :) ) but are not "responsible" adults or humans.
 
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RudyP said:
I have reminded vendors that I owe them money. If you did the work and I'm happy with it, I want to compensate you for your effort. Is basic honesty that rare?
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I don't know about basic honesty, but I don't come across a lot of people who go out of their way to make sure their bills are paid even when they don't get invoiced. It's good to know there are such people among us. :)

Rich
 
One way I rationalize such "aberrant" behavior is that I don't like it when places I buy from go out of business.
 
Caramon13 said:
I think the term we're looking for here is "responsibility". That client was responsible in understanding he/she had something due and paid it.

I do the same thing as do many responsible adults. The people who miss a bill because they never received an invoice and think "Ah well, guess this month was free" are not only morons and oxygen thieves (Russell Brand reference, look it up :) ) but are not "responsible" adults or humans.
Click to expand...

Responsibility is a two-way street. I typically don't pay bills that I don't receive, not because I'm trying to cheat someone, but because I don't have the time to manage someone else's business. I do expect that if a business wants paid for their services, they will invoice me when they want paid. Invoicing is their job, paying an invoice is mine.

With that being said, I would probably notice and question a missing recurring invoice--maybe.


JKG
 
I doubt I would ALWAYS catch a bill that didn't get paid like that, but in the modern era of using software to pay the bills and track them, to miss paying "you", I would have had to have missed at LEAST one automated reminder from my OWN system(s) I use. At that point, it's a matter of morals, and me, I'd be calling to say I didn't get your invoice.

Mostly because I wouldn't want my budget to be "all messed up" until you get around to noticing and back-bill me, and then I have a big bill that "corrects" whatever time-frame was wrong.

Comes from knowing almost where "every penny" goes. Because we sometimes trade off a bit on who actually fires up the bill paying tools and does it between Karen and myself, sometimes we both have a "Hey, have you paid X bill yet?" moment, once in a great while, and we COULD miss something that wasn't invoiced... but pretty doubtful. We know when our bills are coming and what they're going to be.

It's the SURPRISE ones that are really annoying, sometimes. I was NOT planning on spending $1000 on tires for the Yukon the month before I essentially was planning to QUIT my JOB... hahaha... but that was "so two weeks ago"... hahaha...

Damn nails and screws. How do they always manage to hit the SAME tire??? And where the heck am I picking up the dastardly things???
 
JGoodish said:
Responsibility is a two-way street. I typically don't pay bills that I don't receive, not because I'm trying to cheat someone, but because I don't have the time to manage someone else's business. I do expect that if a business wants paid for their services, they will invoice me when they want paid. Invoicing is their job, paying an invoice is mine.

With that being said, I would probably notice and question a missing recurring invoice--maybe.
JKG
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I always (almost always) have my monthly insurance bill buy now, due on the 13th of the month. Having not received it yet, I'm calling State Farm tomorrow as that is one bill I don't want to miss. They charge extra for monthly billing and this is the second time in a year this has happened. I pay for them to send me a bill so I don't have to remember to pay them and I end up having to police them, I'm not too happy.
 
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May not be their fault, Glenn. The post office once lost one of my bills for four months. :(
 
Anything that comes in the mail can get lost. Either the post office loses it, misdelivers it, or it gets thrown out with the junk mail. The little postcard with my car registration bill got "misplaced" a few years ago and I didn't notice until I was pulled over for speeding. The officer didn't notice until he looked at it, then ran it though the database. I was lucky that he let me go. He told me to drive home, park the car, and not drive it again until I had gotten a current tag. Now I have my car registration flagged in the computer and I am more aware of the speed limit on that stretch of road.
 
Happened to me a few years ago in Colorado Springs. Not speeding, no moving violation. Cop noticed tag was expired. Pulled me over and impounded my Jeep. 18 months expired. $500 to get it out of impound. Found out from courthouse that it was not a legal impound. Still had to pay $500. Asst DA dropped the ticket, though.
 
I think (at least last I heard) that the Post Office is the sender's agent - back in the dark ages, a lot of vets in college (like me) had real checks mailed to us by the VA. The VA was about as competent then as they are now, so on any given month you had a 50-50 chance of actually getting the check in the mail.

One of our informal group of angry non-recipients was well off, and so took to destroying his check (if it arrived) every month, and then raising hell with his congressman about the lousy VA service. Sort of adding fuel to the local fire. Anyway, the VA would report they mailed it (which they always said they did, even when they didn't); when the lawyers got in the act was the first time I heard the Post Office was the sender's agent. No cancelled check with the recipient's endorsement? Then you didn't pay the bill - your print-out of "mailed" checks was scrap paper.

This was WAY back - the checks were old 80 column cards, key-punched, but with MICR encoding as well. We'd run 'em through manual key-punch machines, adding random punches, then use a degausser to gack-up the MICR. It didn't get us paid any more regularly, but we hoped it gacked their banking logistics some.
 
I always try to remember to pay bills even if I don't get an invoice, but I can't be responsible for making sure someone sends a bill. ;) I had a vendor last week that billed us for past due invoices from August through December!:eek: When we inquired as to why we weren't bill in a timely manner for their alleged services, they were emailing the bills to an email for an employee who left in 2011 and passed away a month later. Why would they not contact us when the emails are bouncing or at least no payment for 4 months??? Crazy crap that goes on with people! :rolleyes:
 
I once sent a bill to the electric company that they never received. I had mailed it via the inbox at my apartment. Many years later and several address changes later I got it back. With the explanation that the mail boxes at the apartment complex had been replaced and they found it behind the inbox.
 
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