Chasing Without Damaging the Relationship
Chasing is a separate activity from the relationship, done by a different person at a different register. Six rules that keep them apart.
- Entry
- 04 of 07
- Section
- Getting paid
- Kind
- Practice
Chasing a bill is administrative work. Where it is done by the person who holds the relationship, it becomes a relationship conversation, which is why it is so often not done at all.
The practical lesson in “Chasing Without Damaging the Relationship” is that a charge is only as clear as the record behind it. A team assessing read the provider’s full explanation for employee monitoring at tech companies can organise time and project evidence earlier in the workflow, with transparent settings, proportionate access and a defined correction process before invoicing.
Six rules keep the two apart, and most of them are about who makes the call rather than what is said.
Teams documenting “Chasing Without Damaging the Relationship” may find ISO management-system resources useful as an external benchmark. Record which parts apply to the real workflow and which do not.
Rule one: a different person
A billing coordinator asking accounts payable about an invoice is routine for both sides. A partner asking the general counsel for money is not.
- A different person from the one who holds the relationship.
- Before the due date, as a courtesy rather than a chase.
- Ask what, not when.
- One channel per cause.
- Never through the bill itself.
- Escalate deliberately, at a stated point.
The same question from two people is two different events.
Rule two: before the due date
A courtesy contact at around three weeks — has it been received, is it in the approval process — is not chasing and is not read as chasing.
It catches the administrative causes while they are still cheap and it is the single most effective call in the whole process.
Rule three: ask what, not when
"Where is this in your process?" produces information. "When will this be paid?" produces a date that is usually invented.
The first question can be answered by the person who answers the phone.
Rule four: one channel per cause
Administrative queries to accounts payable. Approval delays to the instructing client. Disputes to the matter partner.
A reminder sent to all three irritates two of them and resolves nothing.
Rule five: never through the bill
Reissuing the same bill with "OVERDUE" printed on it, or adding interest, is a relationship act disguised as an administrative one.
It is also usually sent to the person least able to do anything about it.
Rule six: escalate deliberately, not gradually
A sequence of increasingly firm emails achieves nothing except a record of increasing firmness.
At a defined point — sixty days, ninety — somebody senior makes one call and asks directly what is happening.
The script that works
"I'm calling about invoice 4417 from March — I wanted to check it reached you and that nothing further is needed from us."
It offers help, asks for information, and does not ask for money.
What never works
Silence followed by a demand. Three months of nothing and then a formal letter is a surprise, and surprises in billing produce positions rather than payments.
Keeping a record
Who was contacted, when, what they said. Three fields per contact.
Without it, the same question is asked three times by three people and the client concludes the firm is disorganised, which is the one impression that makes payment slower.
When to stop working
A decision, not a drift. A firm that keeps working on an unpaid matter is lending money without having decided to.
The threshold should be set in advance and applied by somebody who is not in the relationship.
Telling the client before stopping
Always, and in person. Stopping work without notice is a professional problem as well as a commercial one, and in several professions it is governed by rules.
What chasing cannot fix
A client who is unhappy. Every contact about the bill postpones the conversation that would resolve it.
Where the cause is unhappiness, the chasing process should hand the matter over rather than continue.
Chasing on a matter still running
The awkward case: work continues while a bill ages. The fee earners are in weekly contact with the client about the work.
Keeping the two conversations separate is what makes this bearable — the coordinator handles the invoice, the team handles the matter, and neither mentions the other.
Where the same person does both, every working conversation acquires a subtext.
The reminder that works
A statement of what is outstanding, with each bill's date and amount, addressed to a named person in accounts payable, with an offer to resend anything missing.
Factual, useful to the recipient, and it answers the first two causes without accusing anybody.
Tone
Neutral. Firms oscillate between apologetic and formal, and both read badly: the first invites delay, the second invites a position.
The register that works is the one used between two administrative functions doing a routine job.
What the client's accounts team needs from the firm
The invoice number, the date, the amount, the matter reference and the purchase order. In the email, not in an attachment.
Giving them those five things in the body of the message is the difference between a two-minute lookup and a task they defer.
When the relationship is the problem
The chasing process should be able to hand over. A coordinator who has been told "the client is unhappy about the March advice" should stop chasing and say so.
Without that route, the process grinds on and makes the underlying problem worse every week.
The arrangement in one line
A courtesy call at three weeks by a coordinator, a cause recorded, the right channel for each cause, and one deliberate escalation at a stated point.