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Do you want paid before or after delivering project?

dmcgrew

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I have been doing a lot of commercial work recently and I'm wondering when you guys like to be paid. I have been delivering first then sending an invoice to be paid. Most people pay almost immediately online. Some others though have been straggling. I've had an invoice for a particular event due for almost a month now. There's another that's been due for 2 weeks now. It's starting to get on my nerves a little bit. I also HATE sending the email that basically says "hey where's the payment for X invoice?"

For some reason I feel weird asking to be paid before I deliver anything. I think I'm just used to how the marketing agency that I work for full-time does things. We usually don't get paid until after we complete a project.. or we at least do in progress billing and bill in chunks once a month during the life of a project. So that way of thinking has been ingrained in me for several years.

So I'm curious how you all handle this. Do you always ask to be paid first? Or do you deliver first and then ask to be paid?
 
Depends on the amount that will be involved. Small work with small fees and expenses get billed post work to be paid prior to release of product. Big work with big dollars require 50% minimum retainer prior to initiating work, balance due prior to release of product. It keeps people honest and above board as there will always be people that won’t pay their bills if they receive a product or service before paying for it.

Look at it from a mechanic’s point of view. You can drop your car off to get it worked on without exchanging money but you don’t get it back until the bill is paid. If an agreement is made to accept payments the mechanic has a lien on the vehicle that allows them to take possession of the vehicle if the owner defaults on payment. Pretty hard for us to take our work back after it has been delivered. Best we can do is place a big watermark in the middle of all the work that can’t be removed until payment is made.

Easier to get paid before releasing the product. If the customer could not afford or did not want to pay for the product when you were hired we might surmise the same condition exists after the work is completed.
 
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It depends on the client and our relationship. The majority of my "regular" work is goods delivered and my "written terms" are 15 days.

I have some larger clients that have to go through the "PO #" process and they take approximately 6 weeks from day of invoice to payment.

If it's a large event and we're allocating a significant block of time we require 50% deposit to holding the booking and then we work out "terms" during our negotiations.

Whatever you do, you need to make sure the client understands the terms BEFORE HAND. If you don't establish terms it's anyone's guess on what is expected of your clients.
 
I echo Big Al’s comments.

We fly for large companies/broadcasters, so I know they’re not going anywhere. Our set terms are 30 days from date of invoice, but most pay sooner than that.

That said, we get 25% upfront for all new work and make sure a contract is signed before I go anywhere near the sticks. Either way as long as both parties are aware of what is expected beforehand then drama is usually avoided.
 
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Anyone have any failure to pay? I ran a vehicle rental business and always had body shops behind on payments, it was tough cause they would send you so much business and pay most their bills so you were making money.

Tough balance.
 
In 28 years in the media (granted only 4 with UAV work) I have only ever had one customer not pay. *touches wood*


To date I've got (2) clients with payment issues and we've been in business for several years now.

The first one is the North Carolina state Govt LOL! The hoops you have to go through to be a vendor are mind boggling and just when you think you've crossed over into the Mother Land you find out there's a whole new set of hoops in order to get payment LOL! We are right now at 9 months out and I just got the email this week with additional forms to fill out so hopefully that will be resolved SOON.

My other "slow/No Pay" is a small marketing company who is in Start-Up mode and I don't think they are properly funded. I've sent a couple of messages with no response so I'll have to draft a letter and when I get to this point I'll hand deliver it and speak to the head honcho and see what she has to say. I'm easy going but when it comes to business sometimes you gotta put on your Big Boy pants and go head on with them.
 
Government work pay schedules usually end up starting at 6 months to longer. Anyone looking to do government work needs to be well funded to afford the period between providing goods or a service and price the lost use of revenue into their fee structure.

Universities, aerospace, and governments all use a very similar inefficient departmental process structure.
 
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Government work pay schedules usually end up starting at 6 months to longer. Anyone looking to do government work needs to be well funded to afford the period between providing goods or a service and price the lost use of revenue into their fee structure.

Universities, aerospace, and governments all use a very similar inefficient departmental process structure.


Very well said. I think one part of your statement needs to be stressed and applied to our industry as a whole:

Anyone looking to do government this type of work needs to be well funded to afford the period between providing goods or a service and price the lost use of revenue into their fee structure.

IMHO (take it for what you've paid for it) it looks poor on a company from a fiscal and reliable stand-point to not be able to do work and allow the client to have at least some degree of "Terms". I feel like if you can't swing it for a week or two you're either way under funded or inappropriately funded.

Now to put things into perspective.... my Full Time job I work for a company that works on 60-90 days terms but we're talking big $$ and a strong company that's been in business almost 70 years.
 

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