Best Business Practices for Photographers [184]
One last point: This fee does not have a ceiling. On some estimates, we have $3,500 to $4,500 figures for PR portraits in quantity, or even $1,800 for longer days' shooting and expenses, and that means $350, $450, or $180 in administrative fees. If you're looking for a way to validate the expense of hiring an office manager whose job it is to send and collect on invoices, just a few invoices late per week will more than cover the costs of paying for the office manager and will mean less time for you sitting in front of the computer doing paperwork.
Collections Services: An Effective Last Resort
I have been fortunate that, in more than 20 years in business, I have had fewer than 10 clients who have skipped out on their responsibility to pay. I have, however, had a few who, after all the courtesy calls, friendly reminders, and resending of invoices, have become nonresponsive. With all, I have found there to be a 90-percent success rate in using a collections service. Once it was a political candidate, once it was a nonprofit, and once it was a major public affairs firm. When all else fails, in my book, it's time to call in the best threat—a blemish on the client's credit and, where warranted, a legal proceeding.
We use Receivable Management Services (RMS) collections. Understand that sending a client to collections is a serious matter, and you will get only a portion of the total amount due. When you use the service I use or a similar one, you can opt to have just a letter written or phone calls and a letter. Either way, engaging collection proceedings against a company is a serious action that may result in a "Placed for Collection" notice in your client's D&B business report.
The letter they will send essentially reads:
Next, they'll send something like:
And it goes on. Understand that when a letter comes from Receivable Management Services, accounting departments who may have previously ignored demands for payment will usually stand up and take notice. RMS's literature lists several features of their domestic collections offer, among them:
Telephone demands. Immediate and multiple contacts, experienced negotiators.
DebtAlert letters. RMS's ability to report debtor information to Dun & Bradstreet credit file commands attention (at your option).
You may escalate your collection requests with their Attorney Collections service. A few highlights of this level of their services are as follows:
Law firm name and stationery. Escalates your demand for payment to a new level.
Resolution and payment. Preferred in lieu of litigation.
Full litigation services. On accounts that warrant it.
There are two basic ways to go. You can pay for the letter-writing service, which runs $25 for a single letter or $40 for a series of letters, or you can use their "contingent upon collection" fee-based service. For $15 they will make telephone calls in accordance with state laws and send letters as well. This option incurs just the $15 and contingency fees as well. We often opt for the contingency option. I have sent a client to collections for as little as $100. That one was a wealthy woman in a tony part of town who just had to have a print that was a 5×7 cropped in deep into a much larger film frame that, had the entire negative (800 ISO) been enlarged, would have been a 30×40. I warned her that it would be grainy, but she just had to have it. So, we delivered. And she then balked. The total was around $100, including the cost of the print, couriers to/from