Getting paid faster starts before the job does
Ask a room full of contractors what their biggest money problem is and most will say the same thing: not earning it, collecting it. The work is done, the invoice is out, and the money sits in someone else's account for another three weeks.
Almost everyone treats that as a chasing problem — a matter of sending one more reminder, making one more awkward call. It is not. It is a terms problem, and terms are set before the job starts, not after it ends. The trades who get paid on time are not better at chasing. They are better at setting it up so there is nothing to chase.
The deposit does two jobs
A deposit is not just early money. It is the moment the customer commits — the difference between someone who is shopping and someone who is your customer. It also funds the materials so the job is not running on your cash.
A job with no deposit is a loan you made to your customer, at zero interest, secured by nothing.
Say you take a $6,000 kitchen. Materials run $2,200. With no deposit, you front that $2,200, do the work, and wait. With a third down — $2,000 — the materials are covered before you buy them, and the customer has skin in the game the day you start. Same job, same price. One version has you financing it; the other doesn't.
Put the terms where the customer already looks
The place to state your terms is the quote itself — not a conversation they'll forget, not the fine print nobody reads. Three lines, on the estimate they say yes to:
- Deposit to book — a percentage, due before the date is held.
- When the balance is due — on completion, or net-7, but a number, not "when you get to it."
- How to pay — the link, the method, made easy on purpose.
A customer who agreed to those terms when they accepted the quote is a customer who already knows what happens. You are not renegotiating at the end; you are collecting on something already agreed.
Then let the follow-up run itself
Even with a deposit and clear terms, some invoices drift. The fix is a fixed cadence — a polite nudge a few days after the due date, another a week later — sent the same way every time, so it never depends on you being at a desk or in the mood to make the call. Consistency is what turns "I'll get to it" into "it's paid."
Where this goes next
Deposits, written terms, and steady follow-up are the whole of it, and you can run all three by hand for free. When you'd rather it ran without you, Deposit Collection asks for the deposit automatically the moment a quote is accepted, and Invoice & Payment Nudges sends the reminders on schedule and tells you when a big one needs your voice. The money side of the trades, on a system instead of a memory.
New here? Create a free account — the calculators and the Trade School are open, and there's nothing to pay to start.