Once again, plenty of valid and well thought out points, and I agree with all of them.
It was your response that made me re-think the way I phrased the original article. While I know some people who have been successful using this kind of strategy for years, it's certainly not something I'd generally advocate for all of the reasons you've pointed out.
Carl certainly would have looked more dishonest in that scenario. However as I understand it, his scenario was a partnership with another company. So it may not be directly applicable to my article, which is in regards to service companies acting as vendors to other companies.
One last footnote: in my experience, there is a third kind of client that doesn't pay on time. The apathetic client. This client is often large and deals primarily with much larger companies, or has a billing department in a different country, or is unfamiliar with your company's contract.
In this situation, as others have suggested, a gentle reminder email from accounts@your-compay.com may be a good way to get attention drawn to your pending invoice without personally stepping into the middle of the transaction.
This was the main point I was trying to communicate anyway - the importance of separation between accounts and the day-to-days.
It was your response that made me re-think the way I phrased the original article. While I know some people who have been successful using this kind of strategy for years, it's certainly not something I'd generally advocate for all of the reasons you've pointed out.
Carl certainly would have looked more dishonest in that scenario. However as I understand it, his scenario was a partnership with another company. So it may not be directly applicable to my article, which is in regards to service companies acting as vendors to other companies.
One last footnote: in my experience, there is a third kind of client that doesn't pay on time. The apathetic client. This client is often large and deals primarily with much larger companies, or has a billing department in a different country, or is unfamiliar with your company's contract.
In this situation, as others have suggested, a gentle reminder email from accounts@your-compay.com may be a good way to get attention drawn to your pending invoice without personally stepping into the middle of the transaction.
This was the main point I was trying to communicate anyway - the importance of separation between accounts and the day-to-days.