That time I realized I was sending invoices all wrong for 7 years

I was at a coffee shop in Denver last November and overheard a guy talking about how his invoices always had a clear "due by" date in bold at the top. It hit me that my invoices just said "Net 30" buried in fine print near the bottom. I went home that night and checked my last 20 invoices, and 12 of them had been paid late because clients probably never saw the due date. Now I put the due date right under the total in 14-point font, and my average payment time dropped from 38 days to 22. Has anyone else had a simple formatting change fix their cash flow?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennybailey3d ago

Used to think the client was always responsible for reading the invoice carefully, but this post really changed my mind. Realized I was the one making it hard for them to pay on time by hiding the due date. Switched mine to a bold line right under the total and saw a similar jump in early payments. Sometimes the simplest fix is the one you never thought of because you're stuck in your own routine.

viola_garcia563d ago

My buddy Mark did the same thing with his plumbing invoices and it worked too.

the_cameron2d ago

Oh, I read an article about that once. It talked about how just making the due date stand out can change the whole psychology of paying. Seems like a simple thing but it makes a big difference.