Getting Clients to Pay

I have several clients that owe me payment for projects.

My typical tactic is to send "Friendly Reminder" emails. The responsible clients usually respond, but it seems that several people have adopted a policy of ripping-off their consultants and contractors.

Small claims court/filing takes time, so I was considering collection agencies.

Does anyone have any strategies/processes/tactics for getting clients to pay what is owed on projects?

Thanks.

-DT

Getting payment is the pain of business.

There's always an odd client that drags out payment.

We had one huge contractor not pay for coming up to 4 months. We run out out patience, threatened legal, but the killer punch was we asked for all images returning and not to be used as we knew they had passed the images to their end client which would have been embarassing for the contractor. We were paid the next day.

What are the payment terms in your contract? You'll hit a lot of places that are 30-90 days after the end of the project is when they pay the bill. This usually has more to do with how their accounts are set up more than them just being lazy.

I've never had an issue of a client not paying on time in the terms we agreed upon during our initial meeting. The one time I did have an issue was the first job and I left payment terms up to assumptions.

I had lots of those and tried everything, I even muscle one time one Ass!@&^*!&@# that was not only abusing me but other people, at the end I when to the city where he was building his project, it end up he didn't have the permits to do it,... busted

As Scott mentioned before everything start, you need to let your client know how you want to get paid, if it is a decent company, they may have schedules and you'll have to deal with that, if your direct contact do not honor that schedule you can try to contact directly their billing dep and bug around. If it is a personal deal, face to face or single freelancing builder or Architect, then it gets more complex, you need to put it in writing, ask for money at front always, if they do not accept, that a giant red flag for you to not do business with them.

Try to hold the release of final images until you get payed or a date is given, for example, when it is a new client for me, I send them small res images with writing in top of them with their comments and changes, when they are happy, and payment is maid I send them final height res. if they cry much I send them the finals, at leas I already have half or 3/4 of the total fee in my pocket by then, other than that, just call. E mail is ok but bug people on their phones works better

Best luck!

I agree, but ''ask for money at front always'' won't workin all countries.

Thank you for the responses.

In most cases I do receive a retainer (50% of the total fee) before I begin any rendering work. It's standard on my written proposals. I have made exceptions sometimes and it usually wasn't an issue. The projects that I haven't gotten paid for are way overdue, so I know it's not a payment cycle issue.

I think on my next round of reminder emails I will out "Lawsuit Pending" or something like that in the subject header.

-DT

you have two incentive options for on time payment. One is to offer a discount for super-fast payment. Say, 5% off if payed in a week. You can offset this by just quoting 5% higher... thats a win-win.

Alternatively, set a percentage for late payment. 4% per month past net 30 is reasonable. Think of it like a credit card, you are essentially lending them money at that point anyway.

Or you can build both into your contract.

The only option thats not sensible is to have no stipulation for penalty for late payment in the contract. Thats a no-brainer.