I think it's safe to say we all bill "NET30", but I'd be out of business if I cut off clients at the 45 day mark.  *I* can't pay that quickly!  If an abstractor does an order for me on February 10, it is invoiced to the client on March 1 (or in the case of this month, on March 3).  We don't start getting the money in for that until the end of March.  We try to stay no more than 6 weeks behind, but a couple of years ago when I ended upon losing close to $100K in a 2 year period to bad debt, there were times when I was THREE MONTHS behind paying the abstractors.  No one dumped me because they knew I would pay them (and I did), even when it came out of my own pocket (and it did).  And I don't want to hear "If you'd cut off those clients sooner, it wouldn't have been so bad."  If I was only doing work in 1 or 2 or even 5 counties, that would work, but when a client with a good reputation gives you $10,000 worth of work a month and strings me along for a couple of months, suddenly they owe me $25-$30,000 and I don't collect a dime.  I understand that this is the drawback to vendor management and don't expect any sympathy there. 

I think I'm just trying to say that when to cut off a client has to be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the length of time they've been doing business with you, how responsive they are to phone calls, and if there's any other bad press here or on Abstractor Watchdog.

Alix