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No news, good news!
The law states that any undisputed invoice can be considered an accepted invoice and must therefore be paid by the customer. At least if you invoice a company, because different principles apply to invoices to private individuals. However, traders must protest the invoice in question within a reasonable period of time if they plan not to pay it.
Exactly what that reasonable period entails is not specified, but in practice, a period of approximately 2 weeks after receipt of the invoice is considered fair for timely protest (slightly longer for complex invoices).
The dispute can also take place in various ways, for example by registered mail or by e-mail. In any case, it's not a bad thing to mention in your Terms and Conditions how and when customers can protest invoices.
So far the formalities, but what if your customer disputes your invoice?
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Suppose the customer disputes your invoice and provides one of the following reasons:
In these cases, the dispute is relatively good news. This is because you can rectify the error quite easily (draw up a new invoice, send new goods, send a copy of the agreements made, etc.). Usually, these actions or any other commercial proposal are sufficient to get the customer to pay the invoice after all.
If the customer protests your invoice quite late or for no apparent reason, everything becomes a bit more complex. The goods or services are often already partially or fully consumed, making it more difficult to detect any problems or damage. In this case, it is best to refer to the period of protest that you have set out in your terms of sale and hope that the customer accepts this argument of late protest. Otherwise, you can still settle the late dispute in court, but that is probably a scenario you want to avoid at all costs.
In any case, it is best to ask about the cause of the annoyance and still formulate a commercial proposal for that. Even if you are fully within your rights.
How to reduce the chance of an invoice protest?
Make sure you have a clear reference to the billing terms and conditions and General Terms and Conditions on your invoices. If you print the Terms and Conditions on the back of your letterhead, it is best to write on the front of your invoice that they can be found on the back.
Web shops often explicitly ask you to accept the terms and conditions via an opt-in before completing an order. For offline transactions, you can request that the customer sign the terms once or with each transaction.
To avoid disputing an invoice, having quotes, order forms and delivery notes signed is also a wise thing.
Respond immediately if your customer disputes an invoice. Often, the problem can be solved quickly. Leaving the file behind and ignoring your customer for a while or starting to warn your customer can be counterproductive.
If your customer sticks to their point of view
If contact with your customer is difficult, hiring an external mediator, such as debt collection specialist Trivion, is definitely worth considering. They can negotiate objectively with your customer and there is a good chance that your customer will explain more honestly and fully why the invoice in question is being disputed. So more information to work with.
In some cases, it can be agreed that the undisputed part of the invoice will already be paid and the balance as soon as a solution or compromise has been found. This way, you already have some signs of goodwill and the financial risk is already somewhat limited.
If the customer turns out to be adamant, we will go through all the recovery steps and thus compile a complete and legally correct file. If the amicable recovery proves unsuccessful, you can thus still start legal proceedings.
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