Deciding to Stop
Writing off a debt is a commercial decision, not a defeat. The cost of continuing is usually larger than what remains to be recovered.
Theirswho controls this stretch
Writing off an unpaid invoice is a decision about where to spend the next hours, not an admission of having been foolish. At some point the cost of continuing exceeds what remains recoverable.
The practical point in “Deciding to Stop” is that getting paid depends on records somebody can explain. A small team considering review this workflow reference for workforce optimization software can organise time and project evidence before invoicing, with transparent settings, proportionate collection and a visible correction route.
Most suppliers reach that point long before they act on it.
For an independent reference relevant to “Deciding to Stop”, consult IFAC knowledge resources. Compare general information with the contract, jurisdiction, payment route and accounting records involved.
The calculation that settles it
What is left to recover, multiplied by the honest probability of recovering it, against the hours and fees the next step costs.
What is left to recover, multiplied by the honest probability of recovering it, against the hours and fees the next step costs.
Written down as one line, the calculation usually settles a question that had been open for a year.
Written down, this calculation usually settles the question in one line.
Why people do not do it
Because stopping feels like agreeing with the customer. It is not; it is declining to fund the argument any further.
The sunk hours
Six hours already spent on a small invoice is not a reason to spend the seventh. It is only an explanation of why the decision feels difficult.
What writing it off means practically
Removing it from your receivables, recognising the loss in your books, and taking it off the chasing list and out of your head.
How it is treated for tax differs by jurisdiction and is a question for your accountant.
What it does not mean
Forgiving it, or being unable to mention it. The debt still exists; you have stopped spending money on it.
Keeping the folder
Keep the file. Occasionally a written-off debt is paid years later by a new finance team tidying up a ledger.
Rarely, but it costs nothing to keep.
The customer list afterwards
The same customer should not be accepted again on the same terms. Either deposits up front or not at all.
A supplier who writes off a debt and then takes the next order from the same buyer has learned nothing and will write off another.
What it is worth to total annually
Bad debt as a share of revenue, and which customers it came from.
The figure usually points directly at a pattern in how those jobs were agreed, not at bad luck.
What the pattern usually shows
No deposit, no purchase order, work started on a verbal instruction, and a customer nobody checked.
Which is the whole argument of this collection, arriving as an invoice nobody paid.
The hardest cases
Mid-sized debts from customers you still like, where another month of patience might work.
Set a date in advance, and write it off on that date rather than when you finally lose patience.
Why it feels like losing
Stopping reads as conceding that the customer was right, and it is nothing of the kind. The debt remains owed; what has changed is that you have declined to spend any more of your own money arguing about it.
Framed as a decision about where the next ten hours go, rather than as a verdict on the dispute, the question becomes answerable.
The feeling is also made worse by everything already spent. Six hours invested in a small invoice is not a reason to spend the seventh — it is only an explanation of why the seventh feels obligatory.
The date decided in advance
The hardest cases are the mid-sized debts from customers you still like, where one more month of patience is always plausible. Those are the ones that run for two years.
What resolves it is setting the date when the invoice first goes overdue: a point at which, if nothing has changed, the debt is written off and removed from the list.
Chosen in advance it is a commercial rule. Chosen in the moment it is whenever patience finally runs out, which is both later and more expensive, and tends to arrive in a week when several other things have also gone wrong.
The same discipline applies to the sequence before it. A supplier who has decided what happens at seven days, at due date, at thirty days past and at sixty is not making decisions under irritation at any point, and the final one — stopping — arrives as the last item on a list rather than as a defeat.
Afterwards, with the same customer
A written-off debt and a continuing relationship cannot coexist on the old terms. Either the next job is paid in advance or there is no next job.
What should not happen is accepting the following order on the arrangement that produced the loss, which is common and is how a supplier writes off two debts from one customer.
Keep the file, too. Occasionally a written-off invoice is paid years later by a new finance team reconciling an old ledger — rarely, and at no cost to anybody who kept the folder.
What the freed hours are worth
The hours freed by stopping are worth more than the debt was. Spending them on getting the next three jobs agreed properly is the only recovery that compounds.