I've done a lot of jobs lately and have been counting the cash and cheques. I am one cheque short. I know which one is missing. Its only for £20.00.
Would you contact the customer and ask if I could pick up another check or would you just forget about it? If she wants to cancel the cheque then its pointless as that would cost as much as the cheque is worth anyway.
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Rattle,
I hesitate to ask, but what have you done for £20?
If it's any more than reply to one email or a 30 second phone conversation, you should be charging a lot more.
I get the impression you are not a greedy man, but you owe it to yourself, your family, and others in your profession, not to sell yourself short.
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I should have charged more that job. It was a regular customer and I was in the area. She just wanted me to setup her new router. It was a standard TP Link thing and I knew her network well (including her sonus system). I would have charged £30 for a new customer but with regular customers Ihave a bit of a bad habbit of under charging.
I was in the house for twenty minutes in total. I charge £30 an hour so I didn't feel it was fair to charge £25 or £30 for 20 minutes work.
Money dosn't motivate me. Money didn't motivate the Hacienda lot either and in Hooky's book they said when they organised things they often gave the booze away free because it was easier than selling it. I sort of have the same mentalility.
The job straight after was to setup a printer, again a standard Epson SX105 (I can do this blind fold, 15 minutes job) and charged £25 (as that is my lowest official rate) but it is very hard. £25 to setup a printer which only cost £35 in the first place.
Mind you when we bought a cheap cas cooker to replace the 30 year old it cost £160 for the cooker and £65 to pay a gasman to fit it.
I know I am not charging enough. I probably need to go on a confidence course to be able to sell better.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Fri 4 Jun 10 at 23:56
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...I know I am not charging enough...
Fair play, Rattle.
Identifying a problem and accepting something needs to be done about it is a long way towards reaching a solution.
No need to go crackers over it, maybe up the rate to £45 a hour with a £30 minimum.
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I am redesigning my website anyway (well at least trying to! mini holidays keep getting in the way, off to one of the nicest parts of the country tomorrow) so on that I will put some prices on it.
I think £35 an hour may be better with a £30 mininum. I will still have the pensioner round though. I have some pensioner customers who I do charge a lot less but I am round their houses more often than their family so I make quite a lot of money from them as the work is always easy and so varied. Anything from setting up a new TV to a changing some preferences on Yahoo mail!
The pensioner round is also strictly for very local people and usualy 80.
Then you also have the people who think £30 is too much, well thankfully I can be a lot more choosy now and I am getting a lot less of them sort. They are welcome to the spotty 16 year olds who work at Pizza Hut full time but also know how to reinstall windows init.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Sat 5 Jun 10 at 00:10
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Rattle,
I think it's great you look after the older folks who might not be able to afford regular prices.
But be aware of the power of the grey pound.
I mean, look at that Ted, he's got more dough than you and me put together. :)
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Ted is always more than happy to pay my rates though :) He is not really that old either as some my customers are a good twenty years older.
It is some times very hard to judge with pensioners though if they are in genuine poverty or they appear poor because they penny pinch. It is the same with all walks of life really.
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...It is some times very hard to judge with pensioners though...
Nothing to stop you offering "seniors' rates" on your website or in other marketing material.
It works for hairdressers.
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>> It works for hairdressers.
Yeah, but we seniors have less hair innit? Proportionately, in terms of effort, wear on tools and so on, the seniors' rate may be a nice little earner.
I used to long for the Sheikh to come and help sort my desktop PC out, but it's in store at the moment. My wife's laptop PC is less troublesome, or troublesome in a different way, and this little MacBook thingy is impeccable so far, and with amazing invisible speakers as well as a classy screen. Supposed to be immune to most viruses too.
Still, I will probably need the seniors' rate when the Sheikh visits our part of the country.
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...this little MacBook thingy is impeccable so far...
MacBook eh? Very nice, must have loads of money.
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>>
>> I mean, look at that Ted, he's got more dough than you and me put
>> together. :)
A pittance ! ........and I'm trying to keep what little I have away from Erin Dors.
Expensive caravans in Yorkshire....Pah !....I wish.
I think we might qualify for hovel rebate on the council tax !
For gawd's sake, don't encourage the lad to whack his prices up !
I think he ought to bring his pensioner age down to at least 60.
Ted
>>
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Write it off then - the goodwill you're creating is worth far more than the twenty quid.
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>> Write it off then - the goodwill you're creating is worth far more than the
>> twenty quid.
>>
How PU? Three scenarios:
1/ Say nothing and someone else cashes it, money lost - no good will created.
2/ Say nothing and the cheque is not cashed, the customer either reminds you or thinks that you dont care about £20 - no good will as such there.
2/ Inform the customer though saying, "just letting you know that I have lost you cheque though dont worry about a replacement" - making yourself look careless an devaluing your work.
I would ask the customer for another cheque though also write one made out to the customer telling them that in the event that both cheques are cashed they should in turn cash the cheque they have been given so they do not lose out from your carelessness - at least this makes you seem caring and that you value the business.
"you" being the OP of course.
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Does she have scanner ?
Get her to scan a £20 note and Email it to you.....seemples !
Ted
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Didn't take long to find something else to worry about :-)
What have you go to lose? - ask the woman to stop the cheque (banks don't usually charge retail customers for this if the cheque was lost) and give you a new one. If she say no - well you tried.
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If it dosn't turn up on Monday I will ask her if she doesn't mind writing me a new one :).
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The only advantage in getting her to stop it, is if you genuinely 'lost' it rather than misplaced it. If it fell into the wrong hands and got fraudulently presented (or even amended to twenty thousand!) you may loose a regular customer if she was not aware of what had happened.
However for £20 and goodwill I would be tempted to tell her that you have lost it, so she has the opportunity to stop it (her choice), but waive the charge.
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I'm 74 and would be very mortified if I had to call in a specialist to set up a router, clean a PC of viruses, or re-install windows (or Linux). ;=)
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Write it off to experience, and in future be more careful. It wasn't the customer's fault so you shouldn't drag her into it.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Sat 5 Jun 10 at 07:59
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Ratts,
In this day and age why bother with cheques can you not use on of those chip and pin machines?
Can you have one of these how much do they cost to have/run?
It would be easier if you can then the cash is instant besides some will throw you a bouncy rubber cheque just to try it on.
Good for you with your rates Top man rattle besides what is your web address?
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Just remember the story of the man whose car would not start;the garage man he called in gave the engine a mighty thump with a big hammer and the the car started perfectly-the garage man said that'll be £100.The car owner said"£100 for that".The garageman said "No;the payment is for knowing what to hit and where to hit it!".
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B, I understand they're pretty expensive for a small business. I can't remember how it came up but someone told me over £300 was the cheapest he could get one for, then I believe there's a slice off the top every time it's used.
It all adds to prices & inflation :-(
JH
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>> Write it off to experience, and in future be more careful.
I'd second that.
I'd also suggest that you should be setting a minimum amount for which you accept cheques as payment. You may not be paying your bank for processing them yet but as your business expands (as I hope it does) then you may have to, and setting out ground rules at the beginning saves you having to impose them later.
Every time you go to the bank to pay cheques in you're taking time out from making money elsewhere, and spending money doing so, therefore losing part of your profits.
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In response to Cheddar, It's happened to me over the years both ways, payments to me have gone astray in similar circumstances - likewise I know that cheques I have written to people an companies have never been cashed. Some sort of Karma there. Not worth losing sleep over it Rattle - forget it, move on an be more careful in the future.
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Just got back from Benllech (so spent most this weekend either in the pub or in the back of a Fiat Panda) but I have now found the cheque. It was simply mislaid rather than lost.
I shall be a lot more careful though in future.
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Cheques are free. I have an Abbey business account which is all direct (no branch service) but I do at least get to pay in cheques for free. I was spending over £15 a month with my old business account on cheque processing alone.
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So Rattle, if I didn't know better, I would say you are "in bed" with this website to generate replies??
A thread all about a lost cheque that wasn't lost, a thread all about a broken bike and all the hassle you were going to have, but Halfords are fixing it.
A thread about passing a speed camera at a whisker over the limit and not knowing what will happen?
Whats next?
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>> So Rattle, if I didn't know better, I would say you are "in bed" with
swine flu. For good measure, throw in a few lines about getting paralytic or using sister's bus pass.
He likes the attention and mothering he gets from pugugly and rtj.
Last edited by: John H on Sun 6 Jun 10 at 21:13
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Rattle how about sticking a photo of you on here i have this impression in my nut lets see if it matches?
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And the website address is??
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Leave him be. There's always one on any forum who'd fret about having nothing to fret about.
Rattle, just don't go volunteering for the Samaritans! ;-)
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Lost cheque - what would you do? - Iffy
