When a client of Balance My Books was sitting on more than six figures of overdue invoices, founder Roman Tepes didn't need another spreadsheet - he needed something that would actually make customers pay.
The client was paying their own bills quickly while collecting slowly, financing everyone else's business with cash they were owed. Within weeks of switching on Paidnice, that client's aged receivables fell by more than half - and new invoices started getting paid on time.
One of Roman's clients had a cash flow problem big enough to threaten the business: a huge accounts receivable balance and customers who chronically paid late.
The client said they were following up. Roman saw little evidence it was working. What he could see was an unsustainable pattern - bills going out fast, payments coming in slow, and over six figures of capital tied up in invoices that should have been paid long ago. Some of it was money the client was effectively paying interest on while waiting to be paid.
On the surface this looked like a follow-up problem. Underneath, the issue was simpler and harder: there was no consequence for paying late, and manual chasing wasn't changing anyone's behaviour.
Roman knew he needed to motivate the client's customers to pay on time, every time. Manually calling and emailing was insufficient - he wanted a "stick" approach, with automated late fees that got customers to pay promptly.
Calls and emails could ask for payment, but they couldn't make late payment cost anything. Without that, the slow payers had no reason to change.
The client ran on Xero, so Roman went looking for an app that could add automated late fees. He found Paidnice recommended in a Xero forum for exactly that - automatic penalties on overdue invoices - and realised it was precisely what his client needed.
The strategy wasn't only punitive. Paidnice let Roman pair the stick with a carrot: interest charges for late payers, and prompt payment discounts for the good ones - all automated, and all designed to change behaviour without damaging relationships.
Roman set Paidnice up for the client, and the system took over the receivables process end to end:
The entire process now runs with no manual effort from the client, while keeping customer relationships intact.
The outcome arrived fast. Within months, over half of the client's late payments had been collected - a six-figure sum reduced by more than 50%, freeing up capital the business could put toward growth instead of leaving it stuck in aged receivables.
The clearest sign the system was working: customers started reacting to it. When Paidnice flags an impending interest charge, they now often get in touch to find out how to avoid it, and new invoices are consistently paid on time.
Roman didn't just solve a problem; he became the person who solved it.
"We look like heroes because we've introduced Paidnice into their business. For their business, it's unlocked cash they didn't have, or cash that they were paying interest on, which now is generated as part of their cashflow. So that's their big win."
"Paidnice makes us look like heroes - it's unlocked cash they didn't have, or cash that they were paying interest on. That's their big win, plain and simple."
For a bookkeeping and business-coaching firm, being able to deploy the right fix quickly is the whole value proposition. Paidnice gave Roman a result he could point to and numbers he could prove.
"We've found Paidnice to be an absolutely brilliant solution for one of our clients. Don't know of anything else in the market that does something like that."
Balance My Books is a bookkeeping and business-coaching firm based in Australia.
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