How long to you give a client to pay?

Steve Strickland

Steve Strickland

Well-known member
Hi Everyone.

I did some freelancing and submitted an invoice a couple of weeks ago. I put on the invoice that it was due in two weeks. Tomorrow is the due date. What does everyone put in their invoices as far as payment due? I sent an email last Friday asking about payment, but never heard back. I'm not sure how forceful to be with the company since I may be brought on in a salaried position soon. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
2 weeks can be a short amount of time in a rather large company that may have to push it through a few departments with multiple approvals. I usually do 30 days before its late. I'd give another week and just drop them an email and make sure they got it. Its a nice friendly reminder and there's that chance they didnt actually receive it.
 
Richie White said:
Hi Everyone.

I did some freelancing and submitted an invoice a couple of weeks ago. I put on the invoice that it was due in two weeks. Tomorrow is the due date. What does everyone put in their invoices as far as payment due? I sent an email last Friday asking about payment, but never heard back. I'm not sure how forceful to be with the company since I may be brought on in a salaried position soon. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Hi, If you want paid THAT quickly, you will need to offer a significant discount. Why else would they pay an invoice in two weeks? Supplier financing (i.e. - waiting to pay invoices until they absolutely have to) is an inexpensive source of funds for businesses. If you want paid in two weeks, you have to offer a significant reason for those terms. Or else, you get in line with everybody else. Here's my advice, if you want paid immediately the day of your shoots. Offer them a higher quality level and lower price, below anyone else in your area, and you will be paid that day. Because, at that point, they realize they cannot live without what you do for them. However, if your intention is to bill industry standard rates, be prepared to wait for a while, 45+ days is NOT uncommon in freelance production. If you are excellent at what you do, in other words, irreplaceable, you set the terms. But, most of us are not irreplaceable, the way we are today. But, we can become irreplaceable by having the lowest price or the best quality. Often times, you will need the combination of both to get what you want (fast payment) from your customers. Good luck!!!

PS - another tip is to include gift cards for fancy restaurants with your hand_delivered_invoice so your client can take their husband/wife out for a nice dinner. this works great if your average billing is in the thousands of dollars.. however, if your average billing is only a few hundred dollars for a single day of freelance crew work, i wouldn't even bother with it.. maybe some starbuck cards would do the trick, tho.
 
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Ohh god thanx,i always thought these things only happening in my country(Turkey)..But now i see its very international(why shouldn't it be?).Because in countries like us , people use very nice the word of ''We are in economical crises,or we also couldn't get our money from client''. In our law after your billing day you have officially 30 working days,which means some months 40 days. I do have some of my payments on time(30 days)but it is so unnormal.Nomally in our sector ,at least here,60 days!!!.But its very very very normal to take your money between 4 or 5 months. This is all about how much your company is powerfull,how creative projects you do for the sector.Because no one wants to hurt a nice company which they are planning to work again or a company which other people likes to work.But if your work is just a mess,then good luck.

At the moment i am waiting nearly 50k from 10 different customers:( And the expenses made for the shootings, i already paid:( Because i can not make wait my crew or the talents i worked with for a that much amount of time.Thats how it works down here. Man you don't want to do this job in this country, in europe or states you have really nice ethics and law,at least they do work well:)

sorry for poor language..
 
Thanks all. The default date on my invoice program was two weeks, so, that's where I left it. It's not like I'm demanding to be paid quickly. Frankly, I just didn't know.

It looks like I could expect about a two month wait. Damn! I'm broke and need the dough. Looks like I'm going to have to keep ignoring those toll free area code and "unavailable" calls coming in for a little while longer.:)
 
I've collected hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in my career and I've always found it difficult to collect two weeks prior or one week after a major holiday. Thanksgiving is coming up so I would suspect your client or their payables person is gone until after the holidays.
 
If your dealing with a company that does not have "in house" accountants or is located in another city be prepared to wait 30-60 days no matter what your invoice says.... it's just not up to anybody at the shoot... producer included... it's the accountants.


Most companies run 30 days. I deal with some that are on 60. Other than the odd accounting error I've never had to wait more than that.

At 30 I usually send an email on the status of the invoice at 60 it's an ETA on payment.

Always include a W9 with each invoice (Or until you establish a working relationship with the company) Their lack of a W9 will hold things up if it's with a major corp.
 
I've had a standard billing practice for over a decade. 50% down. If the project is 30 days or less the client gets an invoice for the remaining 50% which is due on delivery. It states on the invoice its due on receipt and that interest will accrue at the rate of 2% per month on invoices over 30 days.

For projects which are longer than a month after the 50% down a further 25% is due at the midpoint and then again upon delivery the final 25% is due with interest at 2% per month for invoices over 30 days.

This style of billing is also a great filter for clients you don't want. Deadbeats don't want to pay anything up front and you don't want deadbeats for clients either. I've had a number of projects this year which were over 30k and its definately nice to get the downpayments.
 
the answer is it depends on the client. If it's one you want to maintain a relationship, you do a lot of over-looking. The best way to weed a client is to raise your rate. The sacond best way is to pressure em to pay.
While I have done my share of pressuring, I have never pressured a client I wanted to keep.
 
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