Thread: Late Payments
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momofboys 06:38 AM 06-14-2013
Originally Posted by spud912:
So I never thought I would fall into this problem, but here I am stressing about it. Payments are prepaid for the next week and due on Fridays by 5:00 pm. All of my parents are super wonderful in every respect and I've had all of them for 2+ years now. They always pay on time WHEN their child is in care during their normal scheduled days.

However, there are occasional times when their child is not in my care on Fridays for various reasons....vacations, someone is sick, spending time with their child, etc.. In these instances, my contract states that they either have to pay on the last day their child was in my care or they need to make a special (albeit out of the way) trip to my house to drop off payment by Friday at 5:00 pm.

Well occasionally, the children will randomly be out of my care on that Friday or whatever their usual last day is on a typical week and it becomes more convenient for parents to pay on Monday. This has happened fairly irregularly so I've never made a huge deal about it or enforced the late charges. Again, these are really great parents, I don't want to burn bridges when this is the only problem and it occurs very rarely. I know, I know it's probably something I should have been more strict on but I'm a reasonable person.

I'm sure you all can see where this is going . It's become more and more of a problem lately due to summer vacations, family visiting, random illnesses, etc. While each set of parents do it infrequently, the fact that they have ALL been doing it makes it a problem for me because lately almost every week someone will not be paying until next week. Not only do I rely on these payments to come to me ON Fridays, but it becomes a hassle for me to try to make multiple trips to the bank to make deposits (plus the wasted gas money driving there ).

As a result, I sent out a "friendly" reminder on the newsletter a couple of weeks ago reminding everyone that payments are due on Fridays by 5:00 pm. If the child is not in attendance on Friday, they still need to find a way to pay by that day and time. I reminded them that I have been very flexible and have not enforced late fees up until this point but if it becomes an ongoing issue I will have to start.

Fast forward to this week, I have 2 children out tomorrow and I'm getting nervous that they won't pay. One is out randomly tomorrow and the mom (my very favorite mom by the way) is not always the best about remembering to swing on by to drop it off. The second child has been out on vacation for the past 2 weeks and I just don't know if they intend to make a special trip out just to pay me. I only have 4 families so this is half of them!

I feel like I have two options. One of which is to send out a reminder email or text tonight or tomorrow. The other option is to just let it happen and they don't pay until it's too late. If that's the case, then I absolutely will send a written letter home next week to ALL families stating something along the lines of "Due to ongoing problems with paying on time, I will be charging late fees for payments made after 5:00 pm on Fridays effective immediately."

Anyway, what would you all do? It's becoming very frustrating!
I would text mom & remind her that payment is due by 5:00 today. Then state that if she is unable to pay today to make sure to add the $20 late fee (or whatever amount you have in place) to her payment on Monday's drop-off.
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