Have you ever received calls from your vendor that request you to pay them ASAP? If so, you are not alone. In fact, you may be surprised at how often it happens among businesses whether you’re running a $1M or $10M business. In this episode, we share why it is always a bad idea to respond to such a request, and what is the better way to deal with the problem like this.

[0:21] Why is it a bad idea to respond ASAP emails and requests?

Every time our clients run into the similar issue, we always tell them to slow down. If you already have a proper accounting system, you shouldn’t rush to push through the payment. It may break down your system/processes. And sometimes the fault is not at your own. Sometimes, it may cause by a vendor who doesn’t have a proper process. For example, we have seen a vendor sent out the duplicate invoice, or the amount was different than the original one that we agreed on. Imagine this, if our clients had come down to us and push through the payment forcefully at that time, we’d not be able to identify the issues. Worstly, we may need to spend extra effort and time to catch up the differences.

[2.10] Slow down, fix it, make sure it’ll never ever happen again

Thus, if you already have a proper accounting system, it’d be able to identify the issues and catch the differences. We always suggest our clients rely on the system working and make sure whatever we pay is what we are supposed to pay. And it always works well for us. On the flip side, if you look into the process and find the request is legitimate (you haven’t paid them). Just go take a look into the process and see which chain in the process is broken, fix it, and make sure it’ll never ever happen again.

Many clients or ourselves have run into similar issues before, and this is what we found works well for us. We hope you find it helpful as we do. Cheers!