What are the Preferred B2B Payment Methods?

[OldFaithful]

As the title suggests, what have you found to be the best Business to Business payment/receivable methods?

My company operates in the B2B world, and will be supplying a manufactured good to other companies. There are typically 1 time charges for engineering/setup/tooling and per part charges for product delivered, as well as per part charges for prototypes.

I'll admit that I'm a bit fuzzy on the process, so if you've got experience here, I'd really appreciate reading your explanation of how the transactions take place and what I need to setup. My previous roles in engineering have been segmented from the accounts receivable and purchasing departments...but now I need to learn how this works.

What type of checks should one use, if checks at all? Are some perceived as more professional?
Do B2B transactions use ACH, and if so, is it simply setup thru one's bank?
Which service would you recommend for accepting credit cards?
What is the process of sending invoices, bills, checks, etc?
How and when does one perform a credit check on a potential customer?
How does the net 30, net 60, etc. process work? Are there reasons to prefer one over the other?

There are a myriad of other questions I might ask, and many more that I don't know to ask. Thanks for your help!

 

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[OldFaithful]

Wow, it's been 2 weeks. Crickets. Ok, I'll try to followup this thread at some later date after I've figured it out.

Keep Grinding.

 

[Duane]

All of my B2B transactions are via checks atm. I email them an invoice at the end of the month for the services I provided and they mail me a check.

The checks I personally use are the fancy one's my bank makes for me, I don't care what other businesses checks look like as long as they cash. I don't use ACH personally, so can't comment on it.

When I sign on with a new business or even a client, I set up an account with them. We sign contracts, I give them copies of my insurance/licenses and any information they may need on the services we perform. In that contact they put down their preferred payment method. It can be mailing a check/cash or I can charge a credit card they authorize me to charge. I use payeezy for credit card transactions, but I also have a credit card machine I carry on me (clover).

For sending them the invoice, I have my own invoice templates that I made through excel. I type in the services with prices for that month, export them as PDF's and email them out from there. In the future I may switch to quickbooks whenever I want to integrate people being able to log on and make payment themselves online.

I never do credit checks on anyone, but for jobs over $500 with new clients I don't know or aren't credible, we have their information on hand before we do the job and we require half the payment be made before the job is started and the rest be paid upon the job being completed. I've had a few people screw me over before, but it's been for small amounts like $50. It happens, but it's negligible and you should plan for that to happen on occasions.

I've had people go 3 months before making their payment in the past, I just would send them an invoice for the services every month and call them letting them know the bill is due. If they don't pay it after 3 months, I will notify them it will be going up to collections. That normally gets them to pay, so I've never had to actually put a lien on someone's credit before.