i think it is a brilliant idea...what i normally do is if i take longer than 6 hours on site i reduce my rate by a percentage and it becomes a day rate for some of my regular customers but they dont pay upfront...i still wait 3 months for payment.
what i have thought of doing for my customers is to getting them to pay me a retainer on a monthy basis at a slightly cheaper rate which is pretty much the same idea as you only that it will be a 24 months contract.
when i started out i use to finish work for the day then get in my bakkie and drive around to all the customers who owed me money and collect cheques or cash....my days where long...then as i grew and i got an overdraft i stopped doing it and waited fro payments in the post and so the bad debts grew (if i collected all the money people owe me since i started this bussiness i could pay off my house and van)...i invested in a nice motorbike and i used it to collect money and i started hearing comments like gee we must be paying him to much check out the bike so i stopped using the bike because the payments got more difficult to get on time.
why people cant just pay their bills...1 of the reasons is they spend more than they can afford and use credit until they are so throttled with catch up debit...service fees...interest...finance charges...etc...the bottom line is if you dont have the R500 to buy the nike takkies cash you shoudnt be buying them...and i speak from experience...i go thru these dips...i spend spend spend then realise oops now i dont have money to pay my telephone account so i use the credit card and before i know it nobody is getting paid only the arrears on the credit card....then i go on a mission like i am now to make money...to catch up and before you know it back at square one...it should be the other way around the money in my credit card should be in the black not the red before i start spending...the problem is everyone down the line suffers...it creates a chain reaction...you dont get paid so the person you owe money doesnt get paid and so on.
oops turning a simple answer into a 5 chapter book again.
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