Collecting on Net 30 without it turning into 60
Net 30 is almost never 30 days, because the clock doesn't start the day you deliver — it starts when your invoice enters the client's payment cycle. Get the start date in writing.
Norma runs a pest control business in Campeche. Her roster of regular clients is solid — a restaurant, two accounting offices, and a warehouse — and all of them pay. Getting paid was never the problem. When was.
The warehouse job was done on the 3rd, and she handed over the signed report that same afternoon. They told her the usual thing, “we pay net 30,” and she wrote it down as if it were a date. The 3rd of the following month came and went with nothing. The deposit landed on the 19th.
Forty-six days. And she’d already covered the chemicals, the gas, and her assistant’s pay out of pocket on the 3rd.
What does “net 30” actually mean?
Net 30 means delivering the finished job and waiting an agreed-upon stretch of time before you see the money. It’s not that the client is a deadbeat — this is just how companies, offices, and chains pay, and if your business sells to them, sooner or later it’s your turn to wait.
And the wait itself isn’t what costs you. What costs you is that nobody agreed on when it starts counting.
When do the 30 days actually start?
Almost never on the day you deliver. They start when your invoice enters the client’s payment cycle: the day their admin team receives it, approves it, and slots it into that month’s batch.
In between are days nobody counts, and you’re the one financing them. For Norma, that was sixteen days: she delivered on the 3rd, her invoice didn’t reach review until the 8th of the following month, and at that warehouse, payments go out on Thursdays.
That’s why “we pay net 30” isn’t an agreement — it’s a habit. A real agreement would say: the clock starts when they receive the signed report, and the report goes out the same day as the service. That’s a date. The other version is a gray area.
Get it in writing before you start, not after you’ve already waited forty days. Asked afterward, it sounds like a complaint. Asked upfront, it sounds like you know how to work with companies.
Why doesn’t the outstanding balance work as leverage anymore?
Because that leverage lives at the point of delivery, and here, delivery has already happened. You know the counter-shop rule: what’s still owed is exactly what gets you a call back the day they come to pick up. With a net-30 client, that rule falls apart.
A net-30 client is precisely the one who never gives you that moment. Their staff receives the service and signs off, but whoever authorizes payment sits in a different office and wasn’t there. So the leverage has to be set up beforehand. Once you’ve delivered, all you have left are a record and a date on the calendar.
What can you do before you deliver?
Collect a deposit. Not out of distrust, but because a job with a balance still owed is a debt with a shape to it, and a job delivered with nothing collected is a favor.
In Proyecta this is a hard rule, not a suggestion: an order still missing payment can’t move to “in progress” or “ready.” It only comes out of that state once the payment comes in. That lock exists because letting it move forward left the balance effectively uncollectible — the order already looked finished, and the later payment had nowhere to land.
The version without a computer works the same way. Collect the balance, then close out the job. If you close it first, the balance has nothing left to hold onto.
What if they won’t give you a deposit? It happens, especially with big offices and government clients. In that case, what you’re negotiating isn’t the money — it’s the date: which document starts the clock, who receives it, and how you can prove they received it.
Norma stopped sending her report to the warehouse guy over WhatsApp and started emailing it to admin, with a copy to whoever hired her. The work is the same. The difference is there’s now a date both sides can see.
How do you put this on your page?
You describe it. You write what you sell, how much it costs, and how much you want upfront, and out comes a published page where your client can pay from their phone:
“Page for Norma’s Pest Control in Campeche. Pest control for restaurants, offices, and warehouses. Monthly service $1,800 and one-time service $2,400, with 40% upfront to hold the date and the rest due on delivery of the report. Should accept card or bank transfer, with a section on what each service includes and a WhatsApp button for warehouse quotes.”
When someone pays the deposit, that order shows up flagged with an outstanding balance on your list. The ones who chose bank transfer land in their own tab, waiting for you to confirm the money arrived. And you close out the balance right there once they pay — in cash, via SPEI, or by card: the total is calculated from payments that actually came in, not from whatever you type.
What won’t the page do for you?
It won’t invent a due date. An order doesn’t come with a “due on the 30th” field — the payment term is a rule you agree on and write down, not something the page tracks on its own.
It won’t chase anyone down either. There is an automatic balance reminder, and it’s worth knowing exactly what it is: one email to the client, just once, a couple of days after they pay their deposit. It’s a nudge, not a collections effort. It doesn’t repeat, doesn’t escalate, and doesn’t wait for any particular date.
And there are two things it flat-out doesn’t do. It doesn’t invoice: the CFDI is still on you and your accountant. And it won’t remind anyone who hasn’t paid a single peso, because the reminder only exists thanks to there being a balance. No deposit, no balance — and no balance, nothing to collect on yet. That’s the most practical argument for asking for something upfront, even if it’s small.
Put the date on your calendar, not the debt
Writing down “they owe me” doesn’t help, because it has no day attached. What helps is a date on your calendar three days before that client’s payment cutoff, with their name and the amount, so you can reach out while the batch is still being put together — not after it’s already gone out without you.
If you don’t know when their cutoff is, that’s today’s phone call. One question, no complaints attached: what day does payment go out, and what do you need from me before then? Most of the time it’s one missing piece of paper you can send in five minutes — and you’d been waiting three weeks for it.
Describe your business in Proyecta, set your deposit, and publish your page at proyecta.dev. Your client is still going to pay net 30 — but you won’t be the one financing the other sixteen days anymore.