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	How to Collect Business Debt
	Article 2: Persistence Usually Pays You did the work, and your customer was pleased. Then 30 days go by without payment. No problem; they are just a little slow, you think. Thirty-five and finally 40 days pass, and you are worried. Now what do you do? The dilemma is rendered easier if you have a written collections policy. The policy should provide a detailed collection plan for each stage of the delinquency, advises Rosemary Taft-Milby, an attorney who manages the litigation and defense department in the Cleveland, Ohio, office of Weltman, Weinberg & Reis. It should also require collecting any memos about the account, the contract, letters, e-mails and other contacts exchanged, in case they eventually are needed for evidence. Thoroughly document what is done and said after each contact. A polite phone call to your contact or the customer’s accounts payable department will usually resolve the problem. Often the invoice has simply been overlooked or misplaced. If that doesn’t succeed, send a friendly reminder letter a few days later, tacking on interest for the period payment is late. Be persistent. “If it keeps going on and on, I become a pest and call politely every day,” says Bill Koechling, who owns William Koechling Photography, a small photography company in the Chicago area. If you are certain you can remain civil, you might make an appointment to visit the customer, or even drop in unannounced, to see whether that embarrassment might jog the money loose. Taft-Milby, however, recommends against visiting because the situation may be volatile. When nothing else has worked, Koechling sends a carefully worded letter after 60 days, with a copy to a company officer. That action, he says, has failed to obtain payment only once in 35 years in business. (Read Koechling’s collection letter in the Resource section.) You have latitude as an individual in how you push for collection, but there are limits, says Taft-Milby. The customer could sue for harassment if you call too many times a day. You shouldn’t call outside normal business hours, and you can’t threaten or breach the peace. Although these restrictions are fairly standard, guidelines for specific states may be available through your secretary of state office.