Some billing statements are formatted to display how much the client owes overdue for 30 days, 60 days and longer. This is a very bad statement format idea. What this statement format communicates to your clients is that you will accept payment beyond 30 days. This is the wrong message to advertise. Don’t do it.

Billing in any business or profession is important: Some managers and owners of businesses and professions think billing is back office stuff, not worthy of their involvement. This is wrong. Any communications with customers and clients is important particularly communications involving money. For most transactional based law offices, billing is very important. Legal billing helps…

In an attempt to make their bookkeeping software easy to use, many software products do not include the kinds of controls that make it difficult to make mistakes and embezzle funds. Two common examples are: Checks to not have to be voided and accounted for they can just be ignored. The name a check is…

I am often asked if it is better to use a specific payment due date or print “Due Upon Receipt” on your statements. My answer is to always use a specific due date and a realistic one. I recommend 20 days from the date of the statement if your statements are mailed or emailed on…

In the U.S. we call it “accounts receivable”, in the UK and most of Europe they call it “cash turnover”. I like their term better than our term because to me it is more descriptive of the impact of letting money owed become overdue. In the U.S. we say our accounts receivable average is 90…