25/10/2025
Good afternoon. Long post alert.
This is for any motor trade, car dealers that use us for repair/service work.
We have made the decision to no longer invoice and await payments to the motor trade any longer.
We are a very busy garage but always try our very best to squeeze in our trade customers due to there cars always been sold and needs to be collected the next day. Unfortunately as we rush around and get the work done in a super tight time frame when it comes to the other foot and payment is due we are always left hanging and this completely ruins cash flow.
We aren’t super rich as we try keep peoples repair costs to a minimum as we believe in fairness so this has a massive impact on us.
If 5 of our trade customers have a bill of say £400 in that week and parts are £300 that’s cost us £1500 in that week in parts alone, I must say it’s normally a lot more than this. And we can be left hanging for that payment for a month or more. I pay staff on time every single time regardless of if the jobs have been payed for or not. But as we are growing quickly this is hammering the cash flow and could easily spiral to cause problems in the future.
Working out figures because of non payments I’ve worked the last couple of months at a loss after I’ve paid for parts and staff, bills etc
We are more than happy to continue doing work for the motor trade but payments will need to be completed when you collect the vehicle either bank transfer, cash or credit/debit card on our til.
We will get ignored when we chase payments but then they appear when they have another car that needs doing and they settle the previous invoice then.
This eliminates the use of “our accounts department have left early but we need the car back” situations from one man band car dealers that have no “accounts departments”
Now a lot will say just say no, but I’m to nice to do that I like to please everyone.
We hope you understand we aren’t doing this to be awkward we are doing this because we have to so it doesn’t ruin us.
We have a lot of loyal customers that trust us with there vehicles as we do the work properly and don’t rip people off. And we thank you for that!
You wouldn’t go to a shop and say send me an invoice. You pay for it and leave!
Sorry to the people who pay on time every time but unfortunately a lot have ruined it for others.
Just for reference bring your vehicle we carry out the work, receive the invoice , pay the invoice and take the vehicle away 👌
If you are a customer that we collect and drop off your vehicle don’t worry what we will do is send your invoice as normal to you and just compete payment before we arrive back with your car.
Again thank you to all our loyal lovely customers. We really appreciate you!
Dan.
Please feel free to comment and share with what your option on this is.
