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Longest wait for a client to pay?...
I'm moving to a new PC - and using the move as an excuse to get 'tidy'. Part of that 'tidy' is to check and make sure that all invoices have been paid. I have one from a major label that is now just over a YEAR unpaid (not naming names - yet)... ...and another from a local business that is 15 months unpaid What's your record for chisellers* ? * http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chiseler Feb 01 15 02:15 am Link PR Zone wrote: Andrzej with your background in business account management I'm certain you realize the lack of merit using the derogatory term of "chisellers" on an overdue account. Feb 01 15 03:59 am Link i have my wedding clients either give me checks advanced or credit card. That doesn't stop me from calling the day before i make the deposit. It helps stop bouncing checks. I still have to recover one bad check from October. Feb 01 15 05:09 am Link ArtistryImage wrote: Many editorial submissions and many editorial assignments are payable upon publication. 90 days would be a minimum time span for submission to publication in my experience. I expect it to be longer. I have experienced it to be MUCH longer. Not sure it would be advisable for me to send delinquency notices at a fixed interval. Feb 01 15 05:29 am Link I think 90 days is about as long as I have had. I would suggest an automated system for invoicing, one that reminds both you and the client of overdue situations. Feb 01 15 06:19 am Link The longest I've waited is 4 months. Because, I thought they were going to schedule a larger project (so I could roll the event coverage in with the invoice for that one) but they never did, so I sent an invoice. They took 2 weeks after that to pay. Most commonly, I get a lot of 60 and 90 day folks. How are you communicating with them ? Have you spoken to them to find out an update? Surely you must be doing more than just sending an overdue invoice notice? Because that's sort of assholish by itself. Feb 01 15 06:27 am Link For me the longest is 60 days. I have a regular client that takes that long to pay. After 90 days I start taking legal action. If it has been a year, you can forget about getting paid. Feb 01 15 10:20 am Link we've had a couple where we finally just wrote it off as bad debt. but for the most part our clients have paid. and most of them have paid promptly. Feb 01 15 10:26 am Link Probably 14 months with a purchase order through a college for me. They blew the department's budget and it had to roll over to the next fiscal year and await board approval. Purchase orders can drag out and be a very long wait. Sadly, one camera store here that was very popular went under due to slow and minimal pays out of a large outfit that bought tons of supplies. They'd charge $500 on open account and pay $50 and repeat over and over. Big name, but sure sucked in paying off their accounts. After 2-3 years, and huge unpaid debit, the store folded. Feb 01 15 10:29 am Link I've never had a business drag its feet on paying an invoice, but some sport parents tried to slide under the radar, so to speak. The worst was a single mother who had a high-paying job herself, plus generous child-support from the ex. This mother kept putting off paying on what was already a ridiculous bargain I'd never give again. When pressed, she actually used "my daughter attends a private school and the tuition is tough." (Yeah, I know. It's your daughter I shot playing soccer for that elite school.) Then the mom, struggling to get her kid through private school, took a European vacation. She had the nerve to tell me how much she needed to lay on a beach in Greece. At that, I told her I'd be passing her account along to a collection agency. After four months of runaround, I got the check the very next day. Feb 01 15 10:48 am Link Wireless credit card swipe for small clients and individual entities. Let the customer loan from the credit card, not from you.  For large corporate accounts, check out their payment cycles. 30 days is too long for these modern times. . Feb 01 15 05:38 pm Link PR Zone wrote: It's all COD - otherwise: Feb 01 15 05:43 pm Link 31 years and counting... Feb 01 15 11:50 pm Link -The Dave- wrote: LOL Feb 02 15 02:44 pm Link PR Zone wrote: Curious if it's the same one I'm having trouble with... Feb 02 15 02:47 pm Link PR Zone wrote: 31 years - if a regional weekly's publishing house that went bancrupt counts... Feb 03 15 08:45 am Link ArtistryImage wrote: I'm clear up front that I work on 14 days Feb 03 15 03:05 pm Link I BOW BEFORE those of you who managed >30 years My misery cannot compete :-) Just to prove that it's not all 'Doom and gloom' with me, I do have a solution For a small company (i.e. less than 2 million in annual revenue) to take on a large customer legally etc - it very difficult, time consuming and costly SOLUTION TO SLOW PAYERS? Make it LAW that invoices which remain unpaid past 60 days MUST have a 10% fee added When the invoice reaches 90 days, it MUST have another 15% added if it reaches 120 days, then a further 20% is added and the invoice MUST be passed to a government agency for collection Would stop slow payment overnight Feb 03 15 03:10 pm Link 22 months. The check was one where you tear the check off of the bottom and the top has all the billing info on it. They had the date of my invoice on it. I scanned it, emailed it to the person who hired me and asked if they still wanted the deliverables that I'd held which expired after two years. Outside of that, six months is probably the longest I've waited. Feb 03 15 05:55 pm Link I use to play this game, but in 2015 it is COD. I actually have a problem with clients trying to give me money before the shoot. I don't take money in advance. The main thing I do is watermark all preview images and I copyright all images via the U.S. copyright office and put that in the IPTC information of each image. 90% of the work I do is for corporations. I'm not a bank, I am a working photographer and I get paid for the work I do when I deliver it. Feb 03 15 07:04 pm Link BCADULTART wrote: And how exactly do you do that? Feb 03 15 09:14 pm Link You should NEVER allow any account to go over 120 days from invoice, without taking it to legal action. Feb 04 15 07:02 am Link Took me just over 2 years to collect on an invoice at one point - collection by court order. Feb 04 15 10:16 am Link |
