Nitasha Tiku wrote a great piece for Inc Magazine regarding the fact that a slower economy means your invoices will get paid more slowly. Anyway, the article goes on to mention Retaildish.com, a site this not so humble blogger produced(!), as an industry resource:

Money Matters

Getting paid on time in a tough economy

By: Nitasha Tiku
Published September 2008

If you have been losing sleep over cash-flow issues lately, you are in good company. The economy has slowed, and so have the checks from customers. But although the money may not be coming in as quickly as before, the bills definitely are. You don’t have to sit and wait, however, while all your cash drains away. These five companies have found creative ways to get customers to pay on time — and weed out the ones who won’t.

Choose your customers more carefully

Pauline and Thomas Nakios, the husband-and-wife owners of New York City — based women’s apparel company Lilla P, used to be rather trusting. Once, they accepted a $2,000 check written on an account that turned out to be closed. Sometimes, they allowed first-time customers to pay on delivery, without even doing a credit check.

Three years ago, the company decided to get serious about due diligence. Lilla P hired Bernard Sands, a credit-rating agency that has deep data on the retail industry. Bernard Sands charges Lilla P $2,000 a year for about 200 credit checks, a small price to pay for avoiding deadbeat customers. And Pauline and Thomas have started doing their own research. They reach out to other designers, and they check the insider website retaildish.com, where clothing designers go to complain about their customers. If a boutique has a few negative comments on the site, and Bernard Sands is wary, Lilla P demands payment in advance. And if the customer balks, Pauline and Thomas don’t hesitate to reject the order. In the past four years, says Thomas, business has grown sevenfold, to $6 million in sales. But the number of accounts it sends to collections has remained the same — fewer than a dozen a year.