Writing

PaidUp field guides

Invoicing, accounts receivable and embedded financing.

Payments

• What You May Actually Charge for Taking a Card

  Surcharging is governed by card network rules and by state law at once, and the two do not agree everywhere. The safe structures are narrow.

• Offering Financing Without Becoming a Lender

  Point-of-sale financing changes what you may say about price. Truth in Lending attaches to the advertisement, not only to the paperwork at signing.

Receivables

• Deposits, Draws, and the Shape of a Job's Cash

  A job can be profitable and still sink a business if the money arrives after it is spent. The payment schedule is a cash-flow instrument.

• The Lien Deadline Is the Whole Mechanism

  Mechanics lien rights are created and destroyed by dates. Miss a preliminary notice and the remedy is gone before anybody knew there was a problem.

• Chasing Without Souring the Relationship

  A collections sequence that starts friendly and escalates on a schedule recovers more than one that is improvised, and costs less goodwill doing it.

• The Invoice That Gets Paid First

  Invoices are paid in the order they can be processed, not the order they arrive. Most late payment is a document problem before it is a customer problem.