Billing Customers

[Mojo]

I was just curious as to how all of you bill customers. We use Square for all credit card transactions and also accept checks and cash. We have on dealer on a 30 day net program and all the rest are paid before shipment with credit cards on file.

We just started invoicing and getting paid through Square. Both the wife and I are really liking these various square app's. Doing credit card transactions over the phone is time consuming as customers love to chat. We now create the invoice in Square and Square sends it off in e-mail form. They then notify us when the invoice has been paid so we can ship.

In 2018 we will be putting all of our product offerings into Square and then we will simply have to click on an item and it registers the amount. We are finding Square to be a big benefit to us. We get daily sales reports, weekly reports and end of month reports as well e-miled to us from Square. For those of you with employees, Square also has a payroll program.

I am just wondering how all of you handle transactions.

Mojo

[MinUph]

  We don't ship so all our sales are done at the shop, on the phone or at the customers home. I use Square also for cc transactions. I have an iPad at the shop for it and three chip readers, one in each truck and one at the shop hooked to the iPad. I don't want to pay square any more for invoicing as we do very little cc entry over the phone. As for the payroll I have looked into it on two occasions. There turn around times are out of line. If I remember correctly regular employees as an example I run payroll and three days later they get paid. A 1099 or contractor takes even longer. I found this unacceptable. Square is very new to payroll and that is another questionable thing about it. So I stick with Paychecks.
  So to get back to the original thread. We send estimates to a customer, they say OK or not, we do the job. On delivery day Kristen sends an invoice through QB and the customer has it when we arrive. Designers will hopefully send a check then. Some do some don't. Square invoicing might be good with them IDK. Or we carry it with us to the delivery. We get paid by check, cash or CC on site and all is good. The designer side is always questionable.

[SteveA]

I'm a very small business - self employed   -  I bill net 30 days if I know the client.  Otherwise Pay Pal is my credit card option. 
SA

[sofadoc]

I only have a few commercial clients that must be billed. All my residential customers pay upon delivery.

For commercial clients, I take a picture of the invoice with my phone, and email it to them. It's worked out very well. It might be 30 days before a check arrives, but that would be the case with any billing method.
It's probably been 5+ years since I last licked a stamp.

A few commercial clients and regular customers let me store their CC number. When I drive the last staple, I walk over to my CC machine and charge it to their card before I even call them to say it's ready.

[SteveA]

It had to be a lot longer then 5 years - stamp licking Kennedy was President ? 
Doc I think your customers are afraid not to pay you in a timely fashion ! 
Now get back to work before Gene starts in
SA

[kodydog]

We have no accounts receivable. We either get paid before or when we deliver. We do not accept credit cards. Our profit margin is to low to make up for the charge and the extra bookkeeping just ain't worth it. I'm sure we have lost some business because of these policies.

[MinUph]

Just a FYI kody,
  My Dentist along with many other businesses charge an extra % for credit cards. I don't but it is an option. My accountant told me I should be but I don't like that myself. And the extra bookkeeping is nothing with Square. A deposit and fee and that's it. Much easier than any merchant account I've had in the past. Many many customers use a card for miles, points etc. There is no sense in loosing any business because of not accepting cards. You could still ask for a check but the option would be there.

[sofadoc]

Well, I certainly don't mind passing credit card fees on to the customer. It's the American way.
When I started accepting CC's 20 years ago, I raised my prices 5% across the board.

CC's may cut in to your profit margin. But they also reduce price haggling. If the customer can plunk down plastic, they're less likely to dicker about price.

Also, they pay in a more timely manner. None of that getting jerked around for a week or two while they're waiting for another paycheck.

[Mojo]

We build the 3 % CC fee into our prices and kept that cost hidden from the customer. I would venture to guess that 98 % of our sales are CC. We would have to close our doors if we stopped accepting CC payments. It is the way of the world. People buy using their CC's or debit cards and we have some who do it just to gain miles or bonuses from their CC companies.

Many of our customers are from the upper crust of society otherwise they would not be driving $ 500 K buses. Many of them are retired business owners so some will say " I will send you a check or pay cash so you wont have the added expense ". They get it. I think we would find our sales transactions would be more cash and check if we did more local work. Still I cannot imagine a business not accepting CC payments in this day and age. Especially considering Square makes it so easy. They pay we get our money directly deposited within 2 days. If we relied only on checks for out of State orders, we would have to wait till the banks got done floating the checks till we could ship.

Almost all the businesses and suppliers we deal with have our CC number on file. Some are major corporations. It really saves the wife a lot of bookkeeping headaches as well as time. We order and the bill is paid for versus having to write checks all the time.

I do not even have a check book. I haven't wrote a check in years. I just use my debit card, cash or CC. Do people still write checks for everyday items ?

Mojo

[sofadoc]

Do people still write checks for everyday items ?

I don't know if people still write checks at the grocery store. But many still write them to pay for things such as a plumber's house call, or property taxes, and yes.....their upholsterer.

Checks still account for 40% of my sales. 40% credit cards. 20% cash.

My wife is a personal banker at a very large banking chain (let's just say that it's a bank, and it's "of America").
She still sees people bring in their teenage kids to open their first account. And yes, they make them order those damn checks.

[Mojo]

I never pay bills. I just hand them to the wife for her to pay. She has all of our household accounts on automatic payment through our bank. I think she writes a couple checks a month. I haven't a clue as to how people pay their bills anymore. I keep $ 100 in my wallet and that is it. The only time I have a lot of cash is when I am making a deposit after a show. I deposit that at a bank and make damn sure I have my pistol while transporting the money.
I have a hidden safe in the coach and am always a nervous wreck till I get home and get the money in the bank.

We have Canadian customers here and it is funny to see them pay bills. We have friends who live down here in their buses and they all have a hidden fire proof safe. They will bring $ 20 K in cash down with them . They wait til the conversion rate is favorable during the summer/fall months for cash conversion and then run to the bank to get American money. They pay cash all winter long down here. I am assuming they do this so there is no paper trail on goods bought so as to avoid duties when they get back home.

I forgot what the cash limit is for Canadians when crossing the border into the USA. I believe $ 10 K each or maybe $ 15 K. We have several Canadian customers who always pay cash.

Mojo

[kodydog]

I don't know if people still write checks at the grocery store.

Have you never gotten behind somebody at the grocery store writing a check? This is a come home to Jesus moment.

Last Saturday I pulled into a checkout and could instantly tell a problem was going on. The teller had the supervisor there and they were both trying to figure out how to make the cash register accept the check. The check was not a normal checkbook check it was larger like a payroll check. I don't know how it ended because I quickly found another lane that was empty. When I left the store they were both still there staring in bewilderment trying to figure out what to do.

When Rose worked at the Department of Revenue cash was a big pain in the ass. At the end of the day all the cash had to be counted and verified.

Some tax payers would show up right before closing with $5000 all in small bills. At 5:00 everybody was ready to leave but the collectors couldn't until all the cash was counted. They stood there impatiently while Rose counted the money. Then all of the days receipts had to be sent to Tallahassee and after that it was a mad rush to get to the bank before they closed.

One day her supervisor came into her office and announced we will no longer accept cash. Rose thought this was great but I always thought this was pretty close to unamerican. How do people who (for one reason or another) pay if they do not have a credit card or a checking account?

[Mojo]

Speaking of cash, I have a close friend who owns a large semi repair facility in TN. When things are a little slow during certain months and to keep his employees hours at 40 he would buy a semi or a large dump truck and refurbish it. He would always do a custom paint job.

Once he bought this dump truck. He went through it, made repairs and then applied a custom paint job. I seen the truck and it was amazing. He put it up for sale and a guy seen the truck in an ad and called him and said he would be here the next day with the money.

The next day in walks this guy with one of his friends. He hands my buddy $ 30,000 cash in a grocery bag. Billy counted it all, handed the guy the keys and title and then started figuring out how to deposit it. Due to banking regulations any deposits made at $ 10,000 or more had to be accompanied with a mountain of paperwork. So he locked the money up in his safe and deposited it in small increments over a two week period. He said " I often wonder where that money came from. He was guessing drug money ".

My son sold his coach a couple years ago and an old couple showed up with all cash. $ 90,000 worth. My son went to the bank with the couple and did the paperwork and title. He said the old couple was long gone and he was stuck at the bank for an hour filling out paperwork. The old guy told my son " I hate banks and didn't want to give you a check. I do not leave my money in banks ". It is funny but I have known many old seniors who went through the great depression and felt the same way. They never trusted banks and kept large stores of money at home either hidden or locked up in big safes.

Mojo

[byhammerandhand]

Quote from: Mojo on December 11, 2017, 11:37:05 AM

    Do people still write checks for everyday items ?

Yes, they're usually the one in the grocery store line on the phone the whole time they are being checked out, then they start to look through a large purse to find their checkbook once the total comes up.   Then another search for a pen (still on phone).   That pen does not work so another search.

I'm thinking, "At what point in time in this transaction did you realize you'd have to pay for your items???"    Not the grumpy old man in the grocery line, but close to it, and keep my mouth shut.  So far.

[sofadoc]

Yes, they're usually the one in the grocery store line on the phone the whole time they are being checked out, then they start to look through a large purse to find their checkbook once the total comes up.   Then another search for a pen (still on phone).   That pen does not work so another search.

I'm thinking, "At what point in time in this transaction did you realize you'd have to pay for your items???"    Not the grumpy old man in the grocery line, but close to it, and keep my mouth shut.  So far.

That's why I love the self-check lanes. I didn't even realize that people still gummed up the works by writing checks.