Solutions Management

I was wondering if anyone else does jobs for this company out of New York?

The reason I ask is my last payment sat on the desk of the receptionist until I called 45 days after invoicing and it has been over 60 days this time with them claiming they never received the invoice. 

I'm considering making them a Pay In Advance for the next job since the profit is too low to be playing the roll of an interest free banker for them as well.  It should send them packing. 

Just a side note: they had me drop the rate this last time as well so if I put one and one together I see a collection agency for them on the horizon in the not too distant future.

I do a couple of Kay's Jewelers for them here in Oregon.


Edited by duckcountry - 27/November/2008 at 12:41am

Businesses see us as janitorial.  We are not a necessary service like lights and water.  In tough times for any business the maintenance end is the last one paid because they know another cleaner is out there to take their place.

Enterprise has laid off 1000 people this month including most of their technical staff.  They have terminated relationships with many of their services due to tight times.  I have heard their oracle databases are acting up and no one is there to fix them.  They can't get rid of their old cars and the ones that do sell are at prices so low there is no profit to speak of.  On all ends of their business including the fact that they already laid out all of the money for the 2009 cars and have received only a fraction of them so far from the Big Three Beggars means they are potentially going to be using old cars.  They do not have good relations with Toyota so they have few choices now.  They have pressuring their employees into contacted their representatives in Washington for a bailout of the US automakers.

Their purchase of Vanguard this year added Alamo and National to the mix.  Both of these have specials arrangements with GM and others whereby the cars are on leases.  All one way rentals are automatically replaced by the auto makers on brand new leases.  If the Big Three are dried up on cash that business model no longer works.  They are known for being late on refunds or challenging them and never let the public get through to those who are in charge.  They find every way possible to overcharge the customer and many times give a customer a mid sized car (according to their definition of car classes that would be an intermediate) and tell them it is the full sized car requested.  Remember theirs is primarily an USED car short term leasing business and you know how highly used car salesmen are thought of.  Pretty pathetic group.  Good thing you got out.

Things are getting tough all over. Many of our distributor accounts that have had 30 day charge accounts with us for years are now taking more than 30 days to pay. Things are slowing down all over.

I finally got the check and I know they will be contacting me in a week or two for another cleaning.  This time the answer is no sale due to slow pay.