Polite money transfers
time to read 2 min | 264 words

One of the things that I almost always do when I pay someone I work with (and that drive me crazy when it isn’t done to me): I let them know that I sent the money. Trivial, isn’t it? But I am working with people in different countries, and it appears that in the internet age, an international money transfer can take a week or or even two.

The problem is related to cash flow, I know that I am supposed to get X amount at date Y. But there are a million reasons why a payment may be late from lost invoices (yes, that really happened, and yes, the invoice was truly lost and not “lost”) to banking holidays to “opps, the gal that handles payments got hit by a car and no one else knows how to do it”. Then, of course, there are the nefarious reasons (I had a client withhold payment for 6 months, including at one point flat out denying that I did any work for them).

As I said, it is a cash flow issue, the fact that I am supposed to get X money at time Y doesn’t mean that I will. But being told that the money was sent gives me much more confidence that the money will actually arrive.

And having told someone that the money was sent, I gain two things:

  • They probably like me much more than before (giving money to people tend to do that).
  • They can sleep much more easily.
Tweet Share Share 5 comments
Tags: