Money money money …it’s so funny …it’s a rich man’s world

I want it back… all the time I spend chasing money…all the time I spend fighting for decent payment terms…hours, days, weeks, months of my life all chasing the elusive dollar…

…every excuse under the sun, I’ve heard it all:

The initial rejections

• We haven’t received your invoice
• Who are you again?
• You aren’t on our system
• Your Purchase Order doesn’t match
• The surveyor hasn’t approved the payment

The next level rejections

• You haven’t removed everything you said
• The Knotweed is still alive
• We can’t pay till you guarantee everything is dead

Level 2 rejections – old fashioned excuses

• The cheques in the post
• The cheques been lost
• The directors away
• We need another signature

Level 3 rejections – the more modern excuses

• The internet is down
• The Internet password has changed
• We can only pay £20K max on line…

But dear reader – I’ve also found myself having to say the same thing to some of my suppliers in the perpetual ‘money-go-round’.

At any one time I am generally owed a lot of money – add to this the amount of retention that gets taken off me randomly – and you have a figure that is painful to even say out loud.

At any one time I generally also owe out a lot of money – not as much as I am owed I hasten to add – in fact significantly less.

Then you have the money that’s available at the bank, the cash in hand, the savings and the VAT money that you put to one side for each quarters return …and maybe if necessary an overdraft facility.

If you use all these funds to front the job for your client – then you leave yourself in a very exposed position – what if the client doesn’t pay or ceases to trade

So what one has going on… is a fairly complex game of ‘chess’ – whereby the suppliers wish to get paid but the client wants to hang on to his cash for as long as he can – then the supplier says he will withdraw his services unless paid – but the client still won’t pay his bill – so we as the intermediary have to fund the supplier’s requests …all at the hope of making a profit after all these shenanigans have gone on…

How’s about we change all this?

I have recently bought some new glasses – they cost £620 – the optician charged me £620 before they were delivered, before they were even made. I was quite happy to do this as they were being made just for me – so I paid for the work I was having done.

I recently bought a new suit – same deal – charged in full before the suit was even started.

Car – £10K deposit – before they start to build the vehicle.

So why, oh why, oh why… do we as contractors, have to wait 30/60/90 days before we see anything??

 

Mike C