A company runs a tab, gets invoiced monthly, and the balance grows quietly. Nobody chases it because the relationship matters more — until the relationship ends and the balance is the only thing left.

It started with a good customer. They came often, spent well, and asking them to settle at the end of every night felt small. So they were put on an account: they sign, you invoice, everybody is comfortable.

Two years later the balance is a number nobody says out loud, the person who agreed the arrangement has left both businesses, and the only document anybody can find is a name written in a diary.

⚠️ What this page cannot tell you

⛔ What you may charge, what terms you may impose, what you must do before pursuing a debt, and what rules apply when you do are legal questions. Consumer and business credit are treated differently, and debt collection is regulated in most places.

⛔ This page is not that. ⭕ Ask your accountant and your solicitor what applies before you extend credit, not after a balance grows.

⭕ What follows is the operational half only: how an account stays a commercial arrangement rather than a favour that hardened.

Why accounts drift, when nobody is careless

Four mechanisms, and none of them involve anybody deciding to let it slide.

The relationship is worth more than the balance

⇒ ⭕ This is true, and it is exactly why it drifts. Every individual decision not to chase is correct on its own, and the sum of them is the problem.

⇒ The Regular Who Brings Everyone

Nobody owns the chase

⚠️ It is not the floor's job, not the bar's, not really the manager's. ⭕ It sits with whoever does the books, who is not in the building on a Saturday and has never met the customer.

The terms were never written

⚠️ ⭕ Thirty days from what? The night, the invoice, the month end? Where nothing was agreed, the customer's assumption becomes the term, and their assumption is always the later date.

And the balance only becomes visible when it is large

⇒ ⭕ A small balance looks like normal trading. There is no threshold that triggers a conversation, so the first conversation happens when the number is already awkward.

⇒ The Report You Open Every Monday

What an account actually needs, before the first night

None of this is bureaucracy. It is five lines, agreed once, and it is what makes everything afterwards ordinary rather than tense.

Who is the customer, exactly

⚠️ ⭕ The company, or the person? This one distinction changes who owes you, what happens if the individual leaves, and what your options are — and it is the single field most often left ambiguous.

What the limit is

⇒ ⭕ A number, stated at the start. Not because you will enforce it rigidly, but because a limit creates the moment where somebody looks — and without one, nobody ever looks.

When it is payable, from what date

⚠️ Counted from the invoice, and the invoice issued on a stated day. ⭕ "End of the month" and "thirty days" produce different dates and both parties will remember the one that suits them.

Who can authorise spend on it

⇒ ⭕ A name, or a short list of names. Otherwise anybody who mentions the company gets served on the account, and you find out at the invoice.

And who receives the invoice

⚠️ ⭕ A person, not "accounts". Invoices sent to a generic address are the most common cause of a balance that is disputed as "never received" months later.

The nights that put the balance up fastest

Worth naming, because they are predictable.

The large group nobody quoted for

⇒ The Minimum Spend Nobody Enforces

The celebration that went further than planned

⭕ Entirely normal and usually good business. ⚠️ It is also where a limit set in advance earns its whole keep, because the moment to mention it is during, not on the invoice.

⇒ The Birthday Booking

The night the authorised person was not there

⚠️ ⭕ Somebody from the same company, on the same account, without authority. This is the version that becomes a dispute rather than a debt.

And the tab that was opened and never closed

⇒ The Bar Tab That Walks

Making the chase ordinary instead of awkward

The difficulty is almost never the money. It is that asking feels like a change in the relationship — so the fix is to make asking not a change.

Invoice on the same day every month

⭕ Predictability does most of the work. A customer who expects the invoice on the second is not being chased when it arrives on the second.

Send a statement even when nothing is due

⇒ ⭕ This is the single most effective habit on the page. It makes the balance a routine fact rather than an accusation, and it removes "I did not know" permanently.

Have one named person do it

⚠️ ⭕ The same person every month, ideally not the person who serves them. Separating the relationship from the collection protects both.

Agree what happens at the limit, in advance

⇒ ⭕ "We settle at X and start again" said at the beginning is a term. The same sentence said for the first time at X is a confrontation.

And write down every conversation about it

⇒ The Incident Log You Do Not Keep

When it has already gone too far

Four things worth knowing before the situation gets formal.

Stop the account growing first

⛔ ⚠️ Whether and how you may suspend an account depends on what was agreed — ask before you act. ⭕ But operationally, a balance that is still growing while being discussed is the version that never resolves.

Find out what document you actually have

⚠️ ⭕ A signed agreement, an email, dockets with signatures, or nothing. This determines your position entirely, and most operators do not know the answer until they look.

⇒ The Chargeback You Find Out About In March

Ask what it is really worth to you

⇒ ⭕ A payment plan that recovers most of it and keeps the customer is often better than the alternative — but that should be a decision made deliberately, with the numbers, not by default because nobody wanted the conversation.

And take advice before doing anything formal

⛔ What you may say, write and do at this point is regulated. ⚠️ This is the moment to ask, not to improvise.

The numbers worth having

Total on account, right now

⇒ ⭕ One number, known at any time. Most venues running accounts cannot produce it in under an hour, which is itself the finding.

The oldest unpaid item

⚠️ ⭕ Not the average age — the oldest. Averages hide the one that has been sitting for fourteen months.

How much of last month's takings has not been received

⭕ A profitable month with a third of it on account is a different month from the same figure in cash. ⇒ This is a cashflow fact, not an accounting one.

⇒ The Profitable Month That Runs Out Of Cash

And how many accounts there actually are

⚠️ More than you think. Informal arrangements accumulate, and several of them were agreed by people who no longer work there.

What good looks like

The five-line test

Pick one account and try to find who the customer is, the limit, the terms, who can authorise and who receives the invoice. ⇒ Five answers means it is an arrangement. Fewer means it is a habit.

The statement test

⚠️ Ask when the customer last saw their balance. If the answer is "when we chased them", the balance is a surprise every time by design.

The total test

Working     — the total on account is known today, without a spreadsheet exercise
Not working — it takes an afternoon, and the number surprises somebody

Three to hold

1  Every decision not to chase is correct on its own — the sum of them is not
2  A limit exists to create the moment somebody looks, not to be enforced rigidly
3  Send a statement when nothing is due; it makes the balance routine rather than an accusation

Where the record has to sit

Who the customer is, what the limit is, when it is payable from, who may authorise and who receives the invoice — with every night's spend attached, in one place. Kept there, the total on account is a number you can say out loud today and the monthly invoice is unremarkable. Kept nowhere, it is a name in a diary, a balance nobody wants to be the first to mention, and a conversation that only happens once the amount has become large enough to damage the relationship it was protecting.

⇒ Receivables Management: The 3/7/14-Day System

The House Account Nobody Closes