You’re not going to get paid on time for every job you do. Sometimes the situation just gets out of your control. It’s a fact of life. Fortunately for service contractors, three of the most common reasons service contractors are not paid on time are within your control.

Before reading on, take a quick second to glance over the bolded heading below. If you can honestly say that your company has never lost revenue or had their cash flow suffer due to late payer, skip this post or try reading something like this, this, or this.

Lost Invoices

It’s amazing how generous service contractors can be. However, to get paid on time, you need to avoid the accidental freebie jobs. Invoices and completed work orders shouldn’t be filed under the seat in your tech’s vehicle. But somehow, it’s still a regular occurrence to find old invoices there when cleaning out the truck. If the customer doesn’t get the invoice, you’re certainly not going to get paid.

Your business needs a system to follow every job through from beginning to end to make sure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle and business of every working day. Your company should have a method to track each customer from the time they call requesting service, through the time your techs get the job, through the time they finish the work, through the time the customer receives the invoice, to the time you receive the money. Any gap in this work flow can mean lost revenue or a delay in cash flow.

Delayed Invoices

Customers–more than ever in this Internet age–expect to get their invoices right away. Many contractors, especially if they also work in the field, don’t keep up with their office work. That means that there can be quite a gap in time between when you do work and when your customer sees the bill.

It’s hard to expect timely payment from a customer, when it’s been so long since you completed the job that they hardly remember what the invoice is for. Customers have become used to receiving bills immediately. They’re also becoming more used to having invoices emailed to them, and then being able to pay those invoices online. To get paid quickly, it is important to bill quickly, in the field as soon as the job is completed if possible. When techs are able to create invoices and collect money via checks or credit cards for work they do in the field, you are far less likely to wind up waiting for payment or losing out on uncollected revenue.

Invoicing with Terms

The terms you offer can also have a negative impact on cash flow and timeliness of payments. Giving a customer 15 or 30 days to pay by cash or check invites the possibility of the customer forgetting about the invoice. Some contractors have gotten fed up with the issue of late cash or check payments and have just started to require customers to have a credit card on file.

Contractors that balk at having to pay 3% to the credit card companies often forget the cost of uncollected debt and the time and effort of having to call up and remind customers of past due invoices. Being able to capture signatures and accept credit cards in the field can be the difference between having a healthy cash flow and constantly be waiting on customers to pay their bills.

A predictable cash flow is incredibly valuable to service contractors. Your employees and vendors expect to be paid on time, and so should you. Putting systems in place to track work and invoices, making sure customers are billed quickly, and avoiding invoicing with terms are all ways to make sure you get paid on time.

What are some other ways to make sure you are paid in a timely fashion? Leave your ideas in the comments.

The ESC Mobile Client Support a Wide Variety of Windows Smart Phones with Touch Screens

The ESC Mobile Client works on a wide variety of devices. It works on most laptop, netbooks, and tablet PCs running Window. The Mobile Client also works on a wide variety of Windows Mobile Phones with Touch Screens.

Microsoft has a list of all the mobile phones they currently support that run Windows Mobile and that will work with ESC Mobile. You can view them here. This is not a comprehensive list, and it is still a good idea to check with dESCO if a particular phone will work with the ESC Mobile Client.

Owners, employees, and customers all benefit from Mobile Computing.

Customers are able to receive more timely service from technicians who have better access to the information they need to get to the job with the right parts and tools, and to get the job done.

Technicians benefit from having the information for their dispatches at their fingertips rather than having to call the office for each update.

Office personnel benefit from having technicians in the field with mobile devices because it means they don’t need to re-enter all the information the tech brings back with him.

Finally, owners benefit from the increased efficiency of their operations which means a bigger bottom line!

Mobile computing is an effective way to bring a new level of professionalism and accuracy to your business. To find out more about how mobile computing with ESC can change your business and to see a demo of the ESC Mobile Client, schedule a demo with a dESCO product specialist.

ESC offers powerful mobile solutions for the modern workforce.

Run on Laptops / Netbooks / Tablets – ESC Mobile Client

ESC Mobile Software provides a high performance system to allow your techs in the field to have access to their dispatches and work orders, as well as any information they’ll need to get their jobs done. It is the ultimate performance system for techs in the field. ESC’s powerful mobile software lets your technicians access your customer and inventory information. It also lets them capture customers’ signatures, create invoices, and scan items in and out of inventory via barcode scanning.

Run on Smart Phones / Cell Phones – ESC Mobile Web

ESC’s Mobile Web Client provides the ultimate value system, allowing technicians to access the essential information for their jobs on their cell phones. The mobile web package is device independent and works on most popular cell phone and BlackBerry browsers.

This low-cost mobile solution features real-time dispatching, job details, time tracking, and much more. It provides a simple way for techs to update their job status in real-time while in their field, without having to call into the office.

Dispatches that are logged in the office are sent to the mobile web, where the technician can view all the details of the job, including: Job Description, Customer Information, Contact, Phone, Address, City, State, Zip, and Job Promised Time.

Run From Any Where with an Internet Connection – ESC Web Front Office

ESC’s Web Front Office give you, your technicians, and your customers a powerful array of features.

ESC’s Web Front Office allows users to login to their software and data from anywhere with and internet connection. This portal gives you access to a web-based dispatch board and lets you manage your customers’ information, and create dispatches and service calls. Also, if your technicians use the Web Front Office, they will be able to view their service calls in the field and update their status throughout the day. This can let techs see their dispatches at home so their first stop is at a job site rather than the office.

The Web Front Office can also act as a customer portal where your customers can login to make service requests, view statements, update their account information, or pay their bill. The Web Front Office has PayPal integration so your customers can pay their bills online by credit card. These updates will occur in ESC in real-time, giving you the freshest customer information possible.