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Liar Liar: How Entrepreneurs Should Deal with Late Payment Excuses

Understanding the excuses, separating fact from fiction, and responding properly is essential to accomplishing your primary goal: Getting paid.

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When confronted with an excuse for non-payment, you’ll want to figure out why this is and take measures to elevate the priority of your debt. It really is just that simple.

One popular way to prioritize your debt is to simply follow-up.

You’d be surprised how few companies have standard procedures in place to organize follow-up on unpaid invoices. Make your follow-up consistent and often and you’ll certainly get prioritized over all the other debts that are not being professionally managed. That’s a fact.

A system like Funding Gates is an excellent place to organize a consistent treatment of unpaid and aging receivables. Another way to prioritize your debt is with security instruments or liens. This tool is not available to all industries and businesses, but there are a lot of security laws out there and you may qualify for one.

The most popular is the mechanics lien which is available to those furnishing labor or materials to the construction industry. Other examples are assessment liens available to condominium or homeowner associations or even UCC liens. If a security interest is available to you it’s very smart to take advantage of it, as it will both secure your debt and prioritize it.

Non-Payment Excuses Don’t Really Matter 

Notice that I didn’t mention any specific excuses in this article. That is on purpose.

A Google search for “non-payment excuses” or “late payment excuses” will yield millions of results, with many guiding you to a post outlining each excuse and a potential response. However, all excuses are really the same.

You’re going at the receivables management process wrong if you’re trying to set forth a specific response to a specific excuse. Understand and comply with the above principles and you will be on your way to a smaller aging report in no time.

Remember that you can hit a wall. If a debt just won’t get paid, seek professional help through a collection service or lawyer. These professionals are very experienced in collecting debts and can impose significant consequences for non-payment. Don’t delay too long and get the debts escalated for their attention as a last resort.

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Photo: Replay

Scott Wolfe Jr. is the CEO of Zlien, a national mechanic lien and preliminary notice filing service that helps building material supply and construction companies reduce credit risk and default receivables through the management of mechanics lien and bond claim compliance. Wolfe is also the author of Lien Blog, a leading online publication about liens, security instruments and getting paid on every account. He is a licensed attorney in six states with extensive experience in corporate credit management and collections law, with a specific emphasis on utilizing mechanic liens, UCC filings and other security instruments to protect and manage receivables. You can connect with him via LinkedIn and Google+.

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