
Ask HN: SaaS Startups- What solutions work to ensure payment from customers? - wmab
- We bill via invoice (net 30), even though we have 1 year contracts in place, many of our customers are very untimely in paying us, sometimes &gt;1 month late, despite many follow up emails. These customers are large, we&#x27;re not worried that they don&#x27;t have cash flow.<p>- Have you had any experience with outsourcing collections &#x2F; some sort of service or product, and to what degree of success have you found?<p>- Is it common to have a hard time collecting on cash post sale?
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Rjevski
Are your invoices a subscription payment, or are they for one-off services?

How do customers usually pay for them at the moment? Is it automatable (credit
cards, etc) or is it highly manual (cheques, etc)

My recommendation would be to stop giving out free lunch if you don't want
people having free lunch. Collect full payment _before_ the service is
provided.

As far as 1-year contracts go, just don't have them. Contracts are impossible
to enforce. Instead, have a monthly price, and then a discounted yearly price
if you pay for a year _in advance_ with no refunds. Essentially the same as a
contract but with no way for people to stop paying midway through.

