Get paid faster

What it is

A plan for shortening the gap between the job and the money, in four phases: take money before the job where you can, invoice at a moment you chose, chase what is late, and match what arrives. Each phase uses settings 4fleet already has. Several of them are off until you turn them on, which is why many operators never use them.

Who it is for

Owners who decide the payment rules, and whoever handles accounts day to day.

Why it matters

When the client pays is up to the client. The delays on your side are up to you: the invoice that went out a week late, the reminder nobody sent, the payment that arrived but was never matched, so the client was chased for money they had already paid.

Phase 1: Money before the job

Card payments go into your own Stripe account. The owner connects it from the Payment Processing card with Connect Stripe Account, and then Online invoice payments has to be switched on in Settings > Setup & status > Feature readiness. Both steps are needed before a quote or invoice can take a card.

The company deposit rule is Require deposit and Deposit percentage in Settings > Operations > Deposits & cancellation. A new workspace starts with a deposit switched on and a percentage already filled in, so open the screen and choose the values yourself. When a deposit applies, the client's accept action on the quote page starts the deposit payment. An account client can have its own deposit on its Commercial agreement, with Deposit (%) and Deposit due (days from acceptance). The detail is in Card payments, payment links and deposits.

Tips

• Take deposits on the work where a late cancellation costs you most, such as long day hires and event work.
• Mention the deposit in the quote email, so the payment step on the quote page is not a surprise.

Gotchas

• Without Stripe and online payments, the deposit cannot be collected by the app. You take it by transfer and record it yourself.
• A deposit taken on the booking moves onto the invoice when the invoice is issued. Do not record it a second time.

Recommendations

• Set Payment channel to On account (bank transfer) for clients who always pay by transfer, so their invoices carry no card link.
• Decide your deposit rule once and write it into your terms, rather than deciding per quote.

Phase 2: Invoice at a moment you chose

A new workspace creates no invoice by itself. In Settings > Finance > Invoice automation, the Invoice Automation card offers three moments: Generate invoice when booking is confirmed, Generate invoice before pickup date, and Generate invoice when booking is completed. Auto-generated invoice status decides whether the invoice waits as Draft (review before sending) or goes out as Sent (automatically email to client). A client on consolidated monthly billing is left out of these per-booking invoices and gets the monthly invoice instead.

Default Payment Terms sits on the same tab. The choices run from Due on Receipt to Net 60, and a new workspace starts at Net 7. A client's commercial agreement overrides the company terms for that client. See Automatic invoices and payment reminders and Invoice settings that save you work later.

Tips

• Prepaid work suits invoicing at confirmation or a few days before pickup. Work with waiting time or extra stops suits completion, so the invoice carries the final price.
• Run in draft mode for a few weeks, read what comes out, then switch to sent.

Gotchas

• An invoice is not issued while your company address, or your VAT number on a VAT system, is missing. Automatic invoices then stay drafts and your team gets a notification.
• Terms on an account client's agreement win over your company terms. Changing the company default does not change theirs.

Recommendations

• Pick one automatic moment, not several, and tell the office which one it is.
• Keep your company terms short for one-off clients and agree longer ones only on purpose, in the agreement.

Phase 3: Chase what is late

Payment reminders are off until you turn them on. On the Invoice Payment Reminders card, Enable automatic payment reminders and the Reminder Schedule set one reminder before the due date and up to three after it. Saving with reminders on opens Start emailing clients about unpaid invoices?, because invoices that are already overdue are included in the first run. Reminders go only to invoices that were actually delivered and are still unpaid, and pending reminders stop when the invoice is paid.

For the cases a schedule cannot judge, ask Carson. It can list overdue invoices with how many days late each one is, and it can propose turning reminders on; every change waits for your approval. When a client asks for more time, Extend due date on the invoice moves the reminders with it. Steps: Set up automatic payment reminders.

Tips

• Before you turn reminders on, go through the open invoices and mark anything already paid. Otherwise the first run chases money you have.
• Phone your largest overdue client yourself. A reminder email works best for the many small invoices.

Gotchas

• An invoice that was issued but never emailed is never reminded. Send every invoice you issue.
• A draft is never chased. A draft that sits for weeks is money nobody has asked for.

Recommendations

• Tell your regular clients when reminders start, so the first one does not read as a complaint.
• Use Extend due date instead of turning reminders off for one client.

Phase 4: Match what arrives and watch what is owed

Money that came through a card link is recorded for you. Bank transfers are matched from your statement: in Accounting > Payments > Reconciliation, Import statement, check each suggestion and Approve match. A suggestion records nothing until someone approves it, and a wrong match can be undone with Reverse. Bank reconciliation is part of the Operations and Scale plans. Use Record payment on the invoice only for money that never reaches a statement, such as cash.

To see what is still owed, open Analytics, then Finance. Receivables aging groups sent, unpaid invoices by age, from Not yet due to 90+ days, in each invoice's own currency. Read Match bank payments to invoices and Record payments, credit notes and reissues.

Tips

• Import the statement on a fixed day each week, before you look at what is overdue.
• Ask regular clients to pay invoice by invoice and quote the invoice number in the reference.

Gotchas

• Matching a transfer and also recording it on the invoice counts the same money twice.
• A transfer that covers several invoices is harder to match. Monthly billing for account clients avoids most of these.

Recommendations

• Match first, then chase. A reminder on an invoice the client already paid costs you more goodwill than a late one.
• Look at the oldest bucket of Receivables aging every week and give each invoice in it an owner.