I've enjoyed following this thread. We all certainly have our horror stories regarding "collections".
FWIW- 1. If you decide to play hard ball with a customer, I found that you might eventually collect, but you've probably lost the customer. 2. If your s/w is to a vertical market, the word gets out quickly on who is a deadbeat, and for that matter, if you are providing a good product, support, price, etc. 3. A competitor of ours who had serial port keys required to run their app, and a drop dead date for non payment, should have spent more time on development and support. They're gone. If you have a system which is constantly being improved at a fair price, you've made it worth it for folks to pay their bills. 4. I've had customers eventually pay their bills (many months late) because they were concerned about their credit rating, D&B report, or "imagine" in the community. Also, you could have a customer who is going through a temporary cash flow crunch. He'll appreciate those folks who gave him an extra 30 days grace. 5. I don't believe in "sneaky code" which stops working at a certain date. Your user may not be the bill payer, and will never forgive you for turning out the lights on the night they needed a critical report or program run. 6. Having said that, even if you don't have a contract, make sure your customer knows your payment terms (in writing) before starting any work. 7. LBNL- It's OK to fire a customer. Move on to those who appreciate your work and pay their bills on time. Dennis ***** At 03:38 PM 7/31/2003 -0700, you wrote: >Why not be upfront about it. Do it like a shareware program or something like >that tell the customer that the program is going to disable on this date. Seem >a little sneeky to me. Maybe Microsoft could take some tips from you and put >some bugs in their software to!!! > > Dennis Fleming IISCO http://www.TheBestCMMS.com Phone: 570 775-7593 Fax: 570 775-9797
