Late fee policy finally worked after 9 months of chasing

I run a small bookkeeping service out of my home in Columbus and for the longest time I had three clients who paid anywhere from 45 to 90 days late. I kept sending polite reminders and they kept paying eventually, so I never pushed harder. Then in March I added a 1.5% monthly late fee to my contract for all new work and told my existing slow payers they had 30 days to sign or find another bookkeeper. Two of them signed, one left, and I collected over $1,400 in late fees by August just from habitually late payments. The difference is night and day, that one client who left actually paid their final invoice in 10 days because they knew I would enforce the terms. Has anyone else seen a late fee policy backfire or cause a bigger headache than the late payment itself?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_hall519h ago

Watched a client threaten to sue over a $12 fee, then paid the whole bill out of spite.

danielk849h ago

Man, people really go to war over the dumbest stuff, huh?