Billing question.....

[Frpdmp7895]

We have had a lawn maintenance company for years. We generally have month contracts with customers. In our contracts we ask that each party respectfully give 30 days notice before ending the contract. We have a business whom paid us $8300 per month, for the past two years. We gave 30 days notice to end this contract because this complex is so time consuming and generally a pain. We end our service on 10/13/2012. I took the monthly fee of $8300, and divided it by 4 (average weeks in a month) and billed them $4150. They have responded by email that they do not agree with this, and think since this particular month has 5 weeks, we should be billing them only $3320. Not a huge deal, except this company has nickeled and dimed us too death. I never adjusted bills for previous months for the amount of weeks in the month. What is the correct way to bill on an uncomplete month? ~Diane

[CHEESE2009]

Lawn care business tips

I'm truly sorry to hear that. It's a frustrating situation to be in! From what I can see you work on Saturdays(?), and this company owes you for two weeks this month, which would come to $4,150.00 - regardless if there is an additional week. They are lucky that you haven't charged them more for the additional weeks within previous months. - You can tell them that they would have been paying $5,187.50 for June & September, considering they each have 5 Saturdays - With that said, they will make it so that they owe you even MORE money. Idiots. lol...

[stevef1201]

" A recent aduit of your account shows that you owe us for x number of weeks during the month of x and x, and were mistakenly billed x. Please send a check for xx within the next tens days for those weeks of work. Thank you.
As we have decided to end our business relationship with you, and we agreed to x dollars per month (divided by 4.3 weeks) that comes to x per week. We have done x number of weeks of work this month and request that you send a check in x amount.
Thank you.

If payment is not recived within 10 days this matter will be turned over to our atorney for collection, in accordance with the laws of the stae of ******


Or just ask you attorney, he is always willing to help (for a small nominal fee of course)

I personally use

I. M. Aschyster
Law Offices of
W.E. Dickum, and Howe

[Steve]

Hi Diane, I am sorry about this happening.

We generally have month contracts with customers.

Why are you using month to month agreements like this? Why not use annual agreements? Was there a reason behind this decision?

[shadrach]

What does contract say?
(If it is a situation where you do the same work every week)
If it is just says $8300/month then I would agree with the customer.
If it says "x" visits per year @ $8300/month then prorate it from those numbers.

If it is a bundle of services (i.e mulch once a year, quarterly fertilizing, weed control) then I would say that you prorate it and tell them what the bill is.


Or you could finish out the month & bill the $8300? You may be able to get away with $3860 (2 weeks divided by 4.3 weeks/month multiplied by $8300/month) - still seems a bit sketchy to me though.

[dpld]

Originally Posted by CHEESE2009

I'm truly sorry to hear that.
It's a frustrating situation to be in!


From what I can see you work on Saturdays(?), and this company owes you for two weeks this month, which would come to $4,150.00 - regardless if there is an additional week.

They are lucky that you haven't charged them more for the additional weeks within previous months.

-

You can tell them that they would have been paying $5,187.50 for June & September, considering they each have 5 Saturdays -

With that said, they will make it so that they owe you even MORE money. Idiots. lol...

i agree and 3 days do not make a week and technically every month has more then 4 weeks so if they want to be that fussy then they owe you more money from all the other months because other then the month of February every month of the year is longer then 4 weeks.

i would send them a revised bill for october with 3 days pro rated off the bill and send them a bill for all the other months with the additional days and thank them for being so honest and bringing that to your attention.

if they then don't see the lunacy in their request then i would refer it to my lawyer because it just seems as if they are pissed because you dropped them and they did not get the last laugh and final say.

[shadrach]

I agree with cheese & dlpd in sentiment but that doesn't make it good advice . You can't go back after the fact & try to bill them for more for previous months & the $830 is enough to make it worth them filing in small claims over (costs $90 here). But again, this is assuming it is just a monthly price agreement & the contract does not say anything contradicting that.

[mark123]

Originally Posted by Frpdmp7895

What is the correct way to bill on an uncomplete month?

The correct way to bill for a week is $8300/month x 12 months / 52 weeks = $1915.39 per week. That's $3830.78 for the two weeks in October.

[Frpdmp7895]

Well, this is how I ended responding to this lady:
The way I came up with the total on Invoice no. 3828, in the amount of $4150.00, was in taking our monthly fee and dividing it by the average number of services, per month. Months typically have four service weeks. However, as in October this can vary. We did not charge additional fees for months that required our additional services (ie February, May,and August). We still feel paying us for half of the month is fair. However, fighting the battle is not something we are interested in, so I am sending a revised invoice.

And, here was her response:
We were not aware of how you broke down the services to prorate the charges. No problem we will pay the original invoice.

Yay! I was shocked!
And, in response - we do annual contracts, bill monthly. Sorry if my wording was confusing.

[CHEESE2009]

This made my day.

Us: 1
Clients: 0