Coping with CPLS

Chronic Payment Latency Syndrome, or CPLS, is the modern version of “check is in the mail” and is something your A/R can share with you along with many funny stories. Things like:

My card was lost/stolen 2 weeks ago, Amex is shipping me a new one.

My card has expired, I am waiting for a new one.

Please try it again, I am not sure why it would have failed the past two weeks that I haven’t been paying the bill.

These excuses used to be tied to deadbeats exclusively, but the new world of credit is making us all look like criminals while banks slash their credit lines, credit cards bring down the limits and credit commerce comes to a grind. We have heard some real horror stories from some of the more established companies we deal with and the world of “corporate credit card” is slowly coming to an end.

You still have bills to pay though!

So here is a little tip.

Figure out which bills are fixed or relatively close to reoccuring. Your cable, Internet, power, rent, cell phones, wireless cards, parking, insurance, etc. Budget it.

Obtain a secured / prepaid card. You can get them from Visa, you can get them from Amex. Some will even let you earn miles. Most have a service charge, $2/month.

Now, here is the trick. You can control your credit and spending and vendors by having a card for each, or card for each industry. This way your overall credit line does not get impacted, nor does your staff have to rush to find a new card when your “business owner” card gets lost, stolen, compromised, cut down.

Banks are all too happy to issue these cards because they are backed by cash and refueled each month.

Why bother?

It takes infinitely less time and hassle to proactively manage your credit and your spending, than shifting your spending from card A to card B, risking service interruptions, disconnections and reconnection fees after the fact.

Let’s face it, this is ugly, but it’s the economy we are in. Everyone is trying to control their risk and their spending, and you should too.