Advice on non payment of invoice (UK)

Hi there,

Just looking for some advice. We have a client that has been refusing to pay their invoice for £2000. According to the government website you can issue a statutory demand and then if they still dont pay you can take then to court to wind up their company in attempt to get paid. This costs pretty much £2000 to do. You wont necessarily even get the money back so could end up £4000 down plus the time spent on it.

This just seems wrong, when the companies time has been spent developing the software and the client is using it and making money from its use.

This client work was done before I joined the company but surely upfront payment is not the only option going forward? If someone does work and sends an invoice is this seriously the only way to get that money? Any advice appreciated so we can implement change going forward to protect us from this? There is another client that owes £9000 too but slightly different circumstance