How Do I Tell A Client I’ll Stop Working If They Don’t Pay?

As we all know, late payments are a persistent problem for businesses in the UK. In fact, around 57 % of invoices are now being paid late across all industries and business sizes. Many of those are stand-alone invoices, but some are recurring. Which means people who are providing an ongoing service are sometimes sitting on a backlog of several month’s unpaid invoices. If that’s you, then at some point you will need to have a tricky conversation with your customer – pay, or the work stops. But how on earth do you do that?

Reach Out

The very first thing you need to do is make contact with the customer to bring this up. This is best done in writing so that you have a clear paper trail should you need it. In this email, you should clearly state that their invoice (or invoices) are overdue. Remind them of your payment terms, and that they agreed to them. Then specify a deadline date that they need to make the payment by if they want to continue receiving your services. Be sure to reinforce that, if payment isn’t made by that date, then you will have to suspend any further work until the invoices are settled.

You don’t have to worry about being ‘too firm’ here. Paying for services you receive is a basic professional expectation, and it’s your right to deny further work if payment is not made. You are enforcing a boundary, and doing so often means the offending business won’t repeat the behaviour.

Key Information To Include

This email should be polite but firm, making your position clear and providing all of the information the client needs to resolve the situation. To make sure you don’t miss anything, here’s a checklist of key information to include:

  • Exact invoices that are overdue, including invoice numbers and due dates
  • A clear reminder of your payment terms and the payment schedule that had been agreed.
  • A clear and reasonable deadline that payment must be received by (e.g. end of day 31/1/25).
  • Explain the consequences of them not paying by this date.

This last point should include a timeline of events, so that they can’t claim to be surprised later. Here you should include not just the immediate consequence (you will halt work on the project), but the consequences of extended non-payment. E.g. What happens if they just don’t respond and don’t pay you. For most businesses this would mean adding interest to the balance, and potentially pursuing legal action.

How Do I Preserve The Relationship?

You might think that all sounds very serious, and worry about the impact such a direct statement (which might even sound like a threat) could have on your relationship with your client. Well, there are a few things you can do to help this. For one, try to avoid using accusatory language in your email, and instead focus on the facts. A lot of people find writing in the passive voice helps with that. So, for example:

‘You haven’t paid your invoices in 2 months.’

becomes:

‘The last 2 month’s invoices remain unpaid.’

It’s a simple shift, but it makes a huge difference.

It’s also a good idea to follow this email up with a phone call after a couple of days. If the client has paid – great! Thank them for resolving it so quickly and move on with the discussion. If they haven’t, ask them if they received your email. If they have, ask them what the plan is for resolving the issue. If they haven’t, then you can reiterate the email to them and discuss it from there. We do recommend having the email up in front of you at this point, sending it again. Taking this approach means that the client has less chance to come up with excuses to dodge you. Instead, they will have to be honest with you, or lie to your face about it – which most people won’t do. Going into that conversation being open to, and prepared to offer a payment plan could help hugely here too.

If you’re struggling with clients who aren’t paying on time, or who are leaving payments until the last possible second, we can help. At Debtcol we are experts in not only recovering money that’s owed to you, but setting up systems and processes to make sure the risk of late payments is minimised. If you would like to find out more, just get in touch with the team today. 

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