Got my first offline sale...how should I take payment?

i use PayPal. the convenience of PayPal beats every other method for me.

I invoice them and they mail me or hand me a check. I prefer not to let paypal take any chunk of payment, especially with how moody they are when receiving large sums of money.

Thanks for your responses everyone. I've decided to try paypal and see how that goes.

Joshua

I use PayPal and have had no problem taking large payments.

I use Freshbooks for billing (Not an affiliate link). It supports one time billing and recurring payments. Set it and forget it. Your monthly invoices go out like clockwork and the cash keeps pouring in.

George

Yea, definitely Paypal for me, anything other than Paypal is just too slow for me, in my country...

George, thanks for the link, I'll look into it.

Joshua

If you have "made a sale" don't waste time figuring out how to get the money...go get a check now!

The longer you wait to collect the higher the odds they will change their mind and find another use for the money. If you want to set up PayPal or other system, fine. But for now, take a check!

Check is usually the easiest and quickest without having to give Paypal any fees and there's the chance they don't want to use Paypal or are unfamiliar with it.

Hey, if they are in your town get your butt in your car and go down and collect the check by hand! seriously!

It will help put a face to the service and make your client more comfortable, that is unless you don't bath for weeks at a time sitting behind your computer.

I have been using paypal as well. For both one time payments and recurring. Eventually I will just set up the recurring billing with my bank so I can cut paypal out of the mix.

I prefer to stay away from invoicing a client for monthly payments and love that paypal charges the client every month the exact date they set it up.

check. paypal isn't stealing my money

Just submit to the client your bank account details (routing/account #) and they can call their bank and have a telephone transfer made to your account.

You wont be giving them any more info than you would be if you wrote them a check, so nothing to fear.

Checks and wires a preferable to credit cards... no charge backs...

Awesome going on your sale!!!! Bravo.

I don't mind using paypal for $100 or less but I don't trust them for much above that. They have a nasty habit of "holding" funds at times. I'd ask for a check from your client.

When I was doing local marketing personally on a day to day basis. We always had someone pick up the check and drop off an invoice the day of, or the day after the "sale." In fact, we made it policy to not even call something a sale until we had received a check.

If you are local.. always go for the check. 1: You don't usually have to worry about cashing and merchant fees (which add up!)

2: You can usually go to the bank it is written on and transfer it to a cashier's check if it's made out to a business, or to cash if it's made out to you personally. ALWAYS DO THIS. I know it takes longer, but there's nothing worse than a client who's thinking that you're working on something but in reality you're waiting 7 days to see if the check clears. Yes. I've had clients write me hot checks.

3: Occasionally you'll land a client that is a true nut job, or suddenly desperate and will do a charge back. I actually had a client do a charge back for $599 simply because one of her windows had gotten broken over the weekend. It had nothing to do with me. But she needed $500 to fix her glass at her shop and to charge it, she simply charged back the $599 she paid to me only 2 days earlier. Called and said.. "hey I hope you haven't started, yet, I have to get money because it's winter and someone broke my window to my shop."

I had another guy actually try to charge back $10,000 because the economy was tanking and he got scared that his business wasn't going to take off after-all. It had nothing to do with me, he was using the site, used the logos we designed on everything, and simply took advantage of the fact that credit card merchant accounts, paypal, etc.. all assume that the card holder is the victim until proven otherwise, and even that can be hard to do sometimes. (he-said/she-said)

So... Cash is KING!

If it's small payments less than $100, than I usually go with paypal or a merchant account. These being held by paypal, being in a chargeback, etc... would do nothing but just tick me off.

And actually.. it's for these reasons that I have moved on from doing one-off jobs for $5k to $10k to doing ongoing monthly residual services. Obviously these are different services, but now, we can go to a client... set the expectations properly, and offer services starting at $47/mo....

If they have a good month, they'll add on a few extra $47/mo services, if not, they might take one away. But they are EASY TO GET, time and time again, and at $47/mo we are at a price point that works for anybody who isn't already upside down in their business.

I no longer have to worry about the next $5K gig... instead, I focus my energy on getting hundreds of little $47/mo gigs. For me, it's a lot less stress and ultimately more profitable for the long run.

Now keep in mind that one client might start off at just one service at $47/mo, and then after trust and relationship is built, upgrade to other services at $47/mo each. It's not difficult to get one client that's using 6 services at $47/mo.

So... 10 to 20 new clients a month using 2 to 6 services is a decent income if you are adding new clients every month. Not a "get rich quick" thing, but you're also not toiling over a $5K to $10k project 15 hours a day.

I use Electronic Signature Solution - Online Digital Signatures | EchoSign and have them fill out there credit card information, then bang it through Authorize.net. I like to have all contracts filled out and a signed CC slip so there is no gray area, if I ever need it.

I don't like taking checks, as it takes too long and I won't start till money has exchanged hands.

To me, that's the only way to go, especially with recurring clients.

Cash is king. But most will not give you $1000. There are apps for credit card processing on the spot- use that. I would stay away from checks- horror stories when it bounces and you have to chase them. Get them to pay on spot until you have built relationship.

Have 'em send a check...take a pic with your phone...and done!

I use Invoice2go on my iPhone. It sends an immediate invoice via email. The client will usually print the invoice and cut a check on the spot.

If bounced checks are so much of a problem that they are affecting your business, you need to target different clients.

So long as you protect yourself any of those methods are fine...

meaning you do not release the product until the money has cleared.

✔done