What Payment Methods Do You Take, and When Do I Pay?

Hey folks! This is John from Freedom Auto Glass LLC.

Welcome to another Q&A session where I answer questions from you all on the internet.

Today's question is:

"What Payment Methods Do You Take, and When Do I Pay?"

Summary:

John accepts cash and card but no longer takes checks, explaining that working in areas like Spanaway and Tacoma led to too many bounced checks over time. On payment timing, he generally prefers to collect after the work is finished. His reasoning is that glass occasionally breaks during installation, and if that happens he won't charge the customer until the job is completed correctly and looks perfect. He remains flexible, though, and will accept payment beforehand when it suits the customer — noting that many work-from-home customers with meetings simply prefer to pay upfront and be done. Ultimately he accommodates whatever fits the customer's schedule, while his default is payment after completion as a safeguard in the rare event something goes wrong.

Answer:

I take cash or card. I don't take checks anymore, just because I'm always out working in areas like Spanaway and Tacoma, and over time I had too many checks bounce on me, so I had to stop accepting those. But cash and card are no problem. As for timing, I generally like to get paid after the work is done. The reason is simple — it's glass, and every now and then glass breaks during an install. If something breaks while I'm working on it, I'm not going to charge you; I'll get it sorted and make it perfect first, and you only pay once the job's actually finished and right. That's usually how I prefer to do it. That said, I can take payment beforehand if that's better for you. A lot of my customers work from home and have meetings to get to, or they need to head out, and they just want to pay me upfront and be done with it. So whatever works for your schedule is fine — but my default is to collect payment after everything's complete, just in case something goes wrong, which honestly almost never happens.