How to Ask for Payment in English: Polite & Professional Phrases

Hey guys, welcome back to engVid. Today's lesson

we are looking at how to ask for money that

is owed to you. So a lesson that could be

useful for someone at work, maybe a freelancer

chasing down payments, I know what that's like. And we're going to be looking at on

the telephone and by email. I'm going to start

with over the phone because it's the more

direct approach. Especially as an English language learner, it will probably be more

difficult over the phone than by email where

you could rely on Google Translate to provide

some sort of half-baked translation. So this

is more challenging because you're going

to need to listen to what the other person

says as well and to respond to that. But we've

got a pretty good script here that you can

make your own and I'm going to talk you through

it now. So, the tone is going to be firm but not

aggressive, okay? So, "Hello, is that -- am I

speaking to --?" I have got lessons on telephone

English so you can check those out. But just

make sure you're speaking to the right person.

"How are you?" And they'll probably say, "Yeah,

very good. Lots of work, very busy." And then a

short, simple reply, "Excellent." Taking control

of the conversation, "Yeah, enter the topic of

this phone call." Now, I'm calling today about

the outstanding payment or payments if there are

more than one for -- and then you could put the

amount of money that is owed. For the outstanding

payment -- actually, you know what? We need to

change the prepositions. So we should say, "Outstanding payment of," then the amount,

and then "for." I'm calling today about the outstanding payments of £214 for services

on the 14th of October. And then they'll say, "Oh, haven't we paid that yet? Oh,

I don't know what's going on with that." Yep, so

there will be some kind of excuse at this point

here. Yep, excuse. We're not going to put up with

that. We did also send you a reminder email on --

we're going to put the date in there on the 21st of October. And they'll say, "Oh,

it must have gone into my spam folder," or,

"Definitely didn't get that." And then again,

one of these sort of very short sentences, "Of

course." We know that they did receive the email,

but, you know, we're not going to say that they

didn't. Now, we're trying to get them to commit

to actually making the payment. When do you think

you might be able to make a payment for this?

Question, what's the answer? It may be something

like, "Oh, I'm not quite sure. It might be the

month after next or something." Yep, which is not

what we need. We need it earlier. So, we'll say,

"Right." Again, a one-word sentence. By using such

a short sentence, you're suggesting that that's

not great. "Our payment terms are always 30 days from the date of invoice."

Yep, nice and clear. We have a rule. It's all documented in the paperwork.

Is there not any way you could settle up

sooner? So, to settle up, if you settle a score,

it means you pay off what is due or what is owed to someone. And then they'll say,

"Oh, maybe we could do it at the end of the month." So, we want to secure that and make

sure they definitely do that. Okay? So, we say,

"Okay, then. Are you definitely going to be able

to stick to that?" Let's try and get the

pronunciation and the sort of rhythm of that

right. "Okay, then. Are you definitely,

definitely going to be able to stick to that?"

Yep, we kind of... We don't go to that, to that.

And then, hopefully, they'll say, "Oh, yes,

absolutely." Okay. So, this, you would use

if they don't honour that commitment to pay.

So, you're going to say, "If there's any

problems, I will get back to you." Yeah? Or,

"I'll get back to you if there are any problems with this." You may also want to

let them know that you need permission to grant

a delay in the paying of this invoice. Yeah? You

need to speak to your boss to get permission.

"I will need to run that past my manager."

"To run that past" means to talk about it with someone more important.

Now, if they say something like, "We're not going to be able to pay until January",

then you need to get a little bit firm. You

need to say, like, "I'm sorry. I don't think

that's going to work." We would normally

expect everything to be paid within a month.

So, you're now giving a threat, given the

situation. "Given the situation", that means

that with the situation we have, what we need

to do, "I think I'll have to consider informing

or terminating our agreement", whatever threat you want to use.

Okay? "It's not working. We're going to have to do

something serious." And then, you could refer to

the condition on the invoice. "As I mentioned

earlier", "mention" means to say, "As I mentioned

earlier, payment terms are always 30 days from the date of invoice."

Okay? And we need to find some way to end this phone call. So,

maybe you could say, "Well, it's been very nice speaking to you,

and I look forward to receiving the payment on

such and such a date." Okay? Something like that.

What we're going to do now is look at how to do

this by email, okay? Using just a few phrases.

Let's have a look. So, this is a basic email

template for chasing a payment. What I've done

to make this even more difficult is to make

some deliberate mistakes in the email. There

are six mistakes to look out for. So, I'm going

to read it through, and you try and think where

are the mistakes. Some of them are prepositions.

Some of them are wrong forms of words.

"Dear Mrs. Supplier, I am writing with inform

you that despite earlier requests in payment,

invoices four and five have still not been

paid. Please look attached copies of invoices.

We ask that you settle this account with one

week. Please ignore this email if you have already

made pay. Kind regard, name." Okay? Have a little look. Can you see any mistakes?

Right. "I am writing to."

It's good practice to say why you are writing at

the beginning of an email or letter. "I am writing

to invite you to a party." "I am writing to complain about." "I am writing to thank you

for." So, this construction here, "I am writing to" is very widely used.

"I am writing to inform you that despite earlier requests in payment

--

for payment, invoices four and five have still

not been paid." Oh, dear. Okay. Let's have a look.

So, we've got a complex sentence here. Yeah? So, this is our

subclause, and this is our main clause here.

Yeah? Complex sentence. "Please look attached

copies of invoices." "Please look attached" --

what do we use in emails? Yep. "Find." "Please

find attached." So, you'll probably get that

funny sort of symbol of a paper clip, and our file

is attached to the email up there, somewhere up

there. "Please find attached copies of invoices."

"We ask that you settle this account, that you pay this account with one week."

This is difficult. The error is here. What does that word need to be?

"Within." Yep. So, it means you have to pay before

the week stops. So, you have to pay in this week.

"Please ignore this email if you have already

made pay." That doesn't sound quite right,

does it? "Made payment." And how do we end

this correctly? "Kind regards." "Kind regards."

Okay? So, nice and simple, to the point, and

we've made it clear what we expect them to do,

to pay in a week. So, the next step would be to

check the account, see if the money had been paid

within a week. If not, then I would suggest going

to a telephone call. We've looked at telephone

calls, emails, lots of key phrases. Test it now

by doing the quiz. Hope you've learned from this.

If you have, share the love. Send it to someone

who would benefit from watching it. Thanks again

for watching. See you in the next video, if you

subscribe and get my notifications. I hope you do.

Thank you. Bye.