Sounds like you need to increase your client quality control and payment policies, Jeff-Ohio.
You’ve falsely assumed that our firm’s potential bad debt level is higher than the industry average, or even higher than yours. The fact is, you have no idea about our firm’s level of potential bad debts, in terms of pure dollar amount or a percentage of billings. Thus, your comment is misplaced. I’ve only commented on the actions we take when certain bills go unpaid.
You yourself admit you’ve been stiffed. And so has everyone else that posted to this thread. The only difference between our firm and everyone else posting here is that we’re not afraid to sue to get paid. We’re kinda like Wal-mart here. Some stores will just settle the fake slip-and-fall claims. But not Wal-mart. They fight everything, including tax cases, like the one in Puerto Rico.
I believe Jeff is being tongue in cheek.
A little bit. But if you want honest feedback, that’s what you’re getting from me. There is a continuum here. If you don’t want to spend a lot of time on it, for whatever reason, but are willing to spend some time on it, then just file the suit and pay the small fee. Sometimes, this does the trick. And if it doesn’t do the trick, you can leave it at that if you so choose. Or, do nothing and let it slide. We do that sometimes.
and is cautious that doing so might affect my image, the other part of me hates to not collect all invoices and hates that writing this off would be positively reinforcing negative behavior.
The “image” thing isn’t a great factor in my view. The fact is, you have a guy you did work for and he didn’t pay. If some “associate” of yours (another client, a banker, a friend, whatever) finds out about it and someone looks unfavorably upon you, I would question their belief system.
One time we had a guy that made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. A big timer in NYC. We prepared his return. Later had to amend it because of a bunch 1099’s he didn’t provide to us, even though we asked about it. He didn’t want to pay for the amended return we did (or maybe it was a response to a CP2000, I can’t remember). In any case, we’d call his office and say, “Hi, I’m looking for Frank to talk about his unpaid invoice.” They’d put us in voicemail or whatever half the time. But we kept calling. Eventually he broke down and paid, once he realized there were people in his office wondering about this invoice he refused to pay.