Why a Bill Goes Unpaid
Six reasons, and the one firms assume first is rarely the one that applies. How to tell them apart in a single phone call.
- Entry
- 03 of 07
- Section
- Getting paid
- Kind
- Analysis
A bill goes unpaid for six reasons: it never arrived, it cannot be processed, it is waiting for a person, it has been queried, the client is unhappy about something else, or they cannot pay.
The billing question in “Why a Bill Goes Unpaid” is easier to resolve when the underlying work has a timely, reviewable record. A professional-services team evaluating consult the official implementation guide for stealth computer monitoring software can connect hours with projects and client work, while the finance system remains authoritative for invoice totals, tax and settlement.
Firms assume the sixth and it is usually the least common.
The issue raised in “Why a Bill Goes Unpaid” can also be checked against IFAC Knowledge Gateway. Use that outside source to identify which records, approvals and professional advice the next decision requires.
It never arrived
Sent to the wrong address, the wrong entity, or a person who has left. Nobody is refusing anything; nobody has seen it.
- It never arrived.
- It cannot be processed.
- It is waiting for a person.
- It has been queried.
- The client is unhappy about something else.
- They cannot pay.
A single call to accounts payable establishes this in two minutes and it is the first call to make.
It cannot be processed
Arrived, rejected by a system or a rule: no purchase order, wrong format, missing codes, after a cut-off.
The client's system knows exactly why. The firm usually has not asked.
It is waiting for a person
Sitting with an approver who is away, busy, or waiting for the matter to complete before signing.
Chasing the accounts function does nothing here; the instructing client can resolve it in one message.
It has been queried
Somebody raised a question and the firm has not answered it, or answered somebody who did not pass it on.
Queries disappear inside organisations with remarkable frequency, and the firm concludes the client is simply slow.
The client is unhappy
About the advice, a deadline, a person, or an outcome. The bill is the available lever and not paying is the available expression.
Nothing in the billing process addresses this and the matter partner has to.
The client cannot pay
Real, and it looks like all five of the others for a while. Partial payments, promises, requests for a schedule.
It is the only one where continuing to work is the material decision.
Which of the six applies
One phone call to the right person. Accounts payable answers the first two instantly, the instructing client answers the next three.
The call takes four minutes and most firms send a third reminder instead.
Why the call is not made
Because chasing feels like asking, and because the relationship sits with somebody senior who does not want to raise money.
Separating the administrative call from the relationship conversation solves it: a billing coordinator asking accounts payable where a bill is is not a difficult call for anybody.
The reminder that does nothing
A statement of account, emailed, listing bills and ages, addressed to nobody in particular.
It does not identify which of the six applies, and if the bill never arrived it will not arrive this way either.
The first contact worth making
At twenty-one days, to accounts payable: has this been received and is it in the approval process.
Before the due date, administrative, non-confrontational, and it catches the first two causes while they are still cheap.
What to do with a genuine unhappiness
Stop talking about the bill. The conversation is about the matter and somebody senior needs to have it.
Resolving it usually resolves the bill; pursuing the bill never resolves it.
The order to check in
Arrival, then processing, then approval, then query, then relationship, then credit.
Cheapest and most likely first. Firms that start at the far end treat an administrative failure as a commercial one, and the conversation starts in the wrong register.
What the client's side looks like
An invoice that arrives without a purchase order sits in an exception queue. Somebody reviews the queue weekly, cannot identify the matter, and leaves it.
Nobody is deciding anything. Nobody will contact the firm. It can sit for a quarter.
The query that vanished
Raised by the instructing client to a fee earner who left, or sent to an address nobody monitors, or answered to somebody who did not pass it on.
Where a bill is old and nobody can say why, an unanswered query is a likelier explanation than refusal, and it is worth asking about directly.
The partial payment
Often a signal: one line is disputed and the rest has been paid.
It is frequently read as a cash problem when it is actually a precise message that nobody has decoded.
Comparing the amount paid against the bill's lines usually identifies the objection exactly.
What to do when nothing works
One direct conversation, senior to senior, asking what is happening and what would resolve it.
It is the step firms defer longest and it resolves more than every reminder sent before it.
The recordable finding
Over a year, which of the six accounted for the firm's outstanding value.
In most firms the first three dominate, which means most of the problem is administrative and most of the effort has gone elsewhere.