Late collection and payment fees

[skyblue]

Hi,
I've always struggled to know how much to put in my contracts for these charges.
I charge £4 per hour for minding. What do you think would be reasonable?
Thanks in advance x

[AliceK]

I charge 10% per day of outstanding monies for late payment.
I charge £5 per 15 mins or part of for late collection, this is on top of the usual hourly rate .

I have had to charge the 10% fee on 2 occasions but haven't charged the late collection charge as parents very rarely collect late and on the odd occasion they have done they have called me to let me know what the problem is. Sometimes things are unavoidable so I don't charge the higher rate in those instances.

xxx

[skyblue]

Thank you for your reply. So far I've been really soft but a new parent has so far been taking the mickey a bit. I put similar amounts in the existing contracts but haven't yet charged. Need to get tougher. Lol.

[gwm]

If the late collections are a regular event perhaps the contract should be reviewed and the contract hours changed to cover the later pick up.

[bunyip]

Hi,
I've always struggled to know how much to put in my contracts for these charges.
I charge £4 per hour for minding. What do you think would be reasonable?
Thanks in advance x

I'm going to be weird and radical and suggest that late collection fees and late payment charges do not matter. Why?

Well, if you intend being paid at all, never mind on time, there is only one approach that works consistently. Payment in advance, on time, every time. No payment = no care + no excuses. A firm statement of intention, "make no mistakes, I will turn you away at the doorstep" is worth more than a million polite little reminder letters. A lot harder for a mum to ignore the fact that she and her lo are staring at your locked door 15 minutes before she is due in the office. She might then consider whether that new cellphone or trip to the tanning studio really was more important than your bill: a concept which rarely troubles the beatific sleep of those clients blessed with "pay me in arrears" CMs.

If you intend to make payment strictly optional (the technical term is "payment in arrears") then fine. You can slap on whatever 'late payment fee' you choose and it could be utterly meaningless. A court may strike out the charge as 'unreasonable' or conversely award a CCJ against a non-paying client, but you never see a penny cos of their "inability to pay."

Moving on: late collections. These fall into 3 categories: unplanned; well-planned or selfishly-planned.

Unplanned. Parent is held up by unforeseeable circumstances, eg. road works, etc. or genuine unavoidable delay at work (of which I have much experience, as a first aider on a station where some pillock was guaranteed to fall down an escalator 5 minutes before the end of my shift . They happen now and again, all part of life. People are a problem; sh1t happens, it's Rule 1 of Life. They are rare but inevitable. I cut the parent some slack and don't charge extra. The goodwill I get for this far outweighs the pain of waiting a extra, oooh, 20 or so minutes before I can open the cider. Parents will sometimes volunteer an extra payment or welcome gift. I ask parents to call or send a SMS message if safe to do so. Above all, I'd rather someone be a few minutes late than drive crazy and end up hours late cos they wind up in casualty in their panic to avoid a punitive 'late collection' fee.

Well-planned. Parent knows they are likely to be late, so they inform me in advance and we agree to a later-than-usual collection, with or without an additional fee, depending on how generally well-disposed* I feel toward the world in general, and the client in particular, at the time of asking. (*This factor is directly proportionate to my blood-alcohol level at the time in question. )

Selfishly planned. This occurs when it becomes blindingly obvious that a client's contracted/invoiced time of collection is far earlier than is consistently achievable. To wit, the highly 'unprofessional' (and therefore entirely honest and accurate) term "taking the p155" can rightly be attributed. The response to which is not one of 'late collection charges'. This is playing into the client's hands: don't you think they already did the math and figured this way was most economical for them? The correct response is the jolly ol' contract review with a revised, later collection time on the contract and, more importantly, on the bill.

Here ends.......

[alex__17]

I charge £5 per hour in advance, then charge £2.50 per part 15 min late which is added onto next months invoice so late fees are in arrears but charge for care always in advance.
I charge 2% per day late, but haven't had to charge that.
Like pp, I use my discretion when charging, a parent stuck in traffic that warned me in advance they were travelling from further away one evening then called en route to say traffic bad were a few minutes late, never been late before so def didn't charge.
Another parent who turned up 1hour 45 min late for her 2 nightmare children because she didn't have the decency to tell me her mum was on holiday and couldn't collect at usual time (nan rung me at pickup time!), or she forgot to tell whoever was collecting etc etc different excuse evreytime, was charged late fees every week I had the kids as she didn't want to change contracted hours...!

Whatever you do I'd charge in advance of care, makes life much easier.