Why do they always come to me 18 months after starting a business then want to pay 1 month and have 18 months of work completed, and when you say there is a one off catchup fee they think you are ttp.
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At my old firm paying by S/o was fine but it needed to be 50% upfront and 50% in arrears so we "shared the cash flow advantage"
If they are being funny about that at this stage I would be cautious
I did something similar once and it's been a total pain in the [***] ever since as the client seems to forget they have a remaining balance outstanding. Also they take the [***] in general so I'm giving them the boot when I get the money.
Regarding 50% up front, I wasted a week of my life back in the summer when a two-company client who ordinarily had accounts prepared around 6 months after his year ends decided he'd like them prepared immediately after year end.
Raked over years of monthly billing and matched it to the work we'd done, and fought tooth and nail arguing he'd already paid in advance for this year's set (in reality he'd paid nothing towards them!)
We took him off monthly billing immediately. It's too much of a hustler's delight!
Yep very similar to what happened to me, very irritating and a waste of my time. Now it's fully paid by the last month of the year.
Yes indeedee!
By the way, don't forget to renew your CIMA subscription. And remember to enquire about monthly instalments.
Personally, I’m a ‘one-off catch-up and monthly payments so total fee paid by YE’ kinda guy. Or if the only thing we do is the YE, the option to pay on invoice between starting work and filing accounts.
The majority of my clients are on monthly fees. But never 18 months behind!
I've only had a few clients expect to start paying the monthly fee from when I take them on as a client and do the previous 18 months for free but when explained that the catch up fee is for all the work required from when they started the business they seem to understand.
I've never had anyone question it as yet, I've had a couple of grumpy ones but they understood and paid
