atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information SUB-CONTRACTING....

Dont any of you techs out there request a deposit before any work is started????

Havent you learned by getting stiffed a few times that this is the way to do contacting work....

Never from another communications company, and I never would. I do require first time customers, when equipment is involved to make a deposit before work starts.

------------------
Voice and Data Cabling in DFW, [email protected]
DnR Communications

Might be a good idea because we have frequently been burned doing subcontract work.....

At the minimum a PO# signed off with the scope of the work. This is a legally binding document.

If we are doing work directly for the end-user customer, they normally pay by progress payments or in full once job is completed. The problem is when we do sub-contract work for main-contractors or middle man. Although some pay promptly, others pay late & we do get burned sometimes for non-payment.
For the latter cases can we take back the Phone System & Phones from the customer premise or is there anything we can do to jam or cut off the lines? I know the local telecom or cell phone service provider does this if any of their subscriber is slow or default on payments. Can we do this & how & is it legal for us to do so? Hope to share ideas on how to collect payment effectively?

------------------
https://www.cablemaster.com.sg

Everything I do is prepaid. $85/hr for support for Asterisk/VoIP related projects flat rate.

IM: [email protected]

We haven't been requiring deposits or prepays, but have come up against a bit of a stumbling block. We do some major installations for a couple of companies; generally we don't have much of a collection problem. Sometimes, though, we get the "But the customer hasn't paid us yet." song and dance...I've been sitting on up to $40,000 in invoices for as much as 120-130 days. How do you guys handle this without burning bridges?

You should always have a back door into the system when you install and release the passwords ONLY after you get paid. This is our standard practice. We also, unfortunately, had to implement any payment over 45 days is subject to a 10% late fee to compounded every 45 days thereafter. It's amazing how much faster your bills get paid.



[This message has been edited by Coral Tech (edited June 07, 2005).]

I always make sure we 60% down. Without it, we don't start on the job. I have never ever been questioned of why we want money down.

Tho this could be why in a later post you were looking for national companies to do more work for.

------------------
Voice and Data Cabling in DFW, [email protected]
DnR Communications