Many design firms hinder the collection of accounts receivable even before signing a contract.
They fail to ask the client fundamental questions concerning how they are to bill for services and how they are to be paid. In most design firms, it is the principals and project managers who should be responsible for improving the accounts-receivable collection process. Unfortunately, they often do not consider regular billing and collection to be an important issue and only become concerned when the checkbook balance is low. As a result, many designers pay insufficient attention to the billing and collection process prior to or just after the contract signing. If, for example, the client regularly processes invoices on the 25th and the firm does not bill until the 30th, the invoice will be delayed at least 3 weeks until the client's next payment period.