Vent: Realized I was invoicing a full week late for 6 months straight

Honestly, I thought I was being organized by doing all my invoices at the end of the month, but a client asked why my payment was a week later than usual. Turned out I was missing their net-15 cutoff every single time because my invoicing was out of sync with their billing cycle. Anyone else have a dumb billing habit that cost you cash flow?

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3 Comments

sage_ramirez425mo ago

Two weeks of delayed cash flow over a six month period probably added up to less than the cost of switching your whole billing system though, right? Seems like a minor headache compared to rebuilding client relationships over invoice timing.

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josephbutler5mo ago

That late invoicing thing is brutal because it creates a snowball effect. Missing one net-15 cutoff means you're not just a week late, you're actually pushing payment out to the next full billing cycle which could be a whole month. A buddy of mine had a similar problem with net-30 terms where he'd invoice on the 5th but the client's system only processed payments on the 1st and 15th. He was losing two weeks of cash flow every single time just because of a scheduling mismatch. Did you end up switching to a different invoicing schedule to match their cutoff, or did you just shift your whole process around?

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derek9945mo ago

Wait, is this really that big of a deal though? I mean, yeah it sucks to wait an extra week or two but if the cash flow is that tight maybe there's a bigger problem. Idk, feels like people overthink invoicing schedules sometimes.

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