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If your client is not willing to pay your money?
I assume there might be people who went through that experience before. What do you do if your client does not pay you after having received your invoice? S/he might be putting off the payment or not willing to pay it at all (maybe : ) What do you undertake officially (or when do you take the action to a legal level) or casually (not necessarily sending two big guys for paying a visit : )))? What did work? What did you try and it didn't work? Feb 04 15 05:36 pm Link I've never really had that happen to me, I have always made it clear in my photography agreement that full payment is to be made before they receive any final images, I will invoice customers that have a good track record that I have worked with on multiple shoots in the past and allow them 30 days, but that is pretty rare. Feb 04 15 05:41 pm Link I'm the only big guy I've ever needed, but that only works with private parties. When dealing with actual companies, 30,60,90 is very common, anyone not paying after 90 days gets sued. Ibe heard that many publications don't pay until the work is published which can be several months down the road so ya gotta wait. Feb 04 15 06:17 pm Link I raise the price that I want by $50 for small jobs, and 10 percent for bigger jobs. I the offer a discount which matches the higher price for full payment in advance. Everybody else pays a 50% retainer. Those people are giving me extra money which I can use to pursue them. The worst ones are the ones that need a $50 add on after the job is done. Never again. They are all prepaid agreements now. You got to pay before you ride the bus, right? But not the cab. Hmm. I will send second invoices. Then phone calls. Rarely small claims court. Sometime, I just chalk it up. But most of my customers will pay in advance to get the discount. I hold the checks until the work actually starts. If they want to negotiate too much, I decline the work. For corporations, I ask around with my peers and find out how well they pay. I have declined many jobs based on reputations. Feb 04 15 10:26 pm Link GER Photography wrote: Unfortunately..He is right.. the Net 90 is more like it.. If you send them three notifications before then. If it's an Individual.. 30 days then civil court. You don't want to make a stink to a potential corporate "nest egg" but in either case you have to cover your expenses and you should have the terms of payment written in all contracts before the work is performed and agreed upon. Then in either case, there is an agreed time limit. Before legal action is necessary. Feb 04 15 11:08 pm Link I've always gotten paid. No photographer wants to risk me standing outside of his window and serenading him with Mel Brooks songs at 3am. I'll do it. Feb 04 15 11:28 pm Link Feb 05 15 04:00 am Link Many businesses, at least where I am, don't process invoices on a rolling basis, so they might not even look at my invoice for up to month if I've just missed a deadline, and then they start the 30-day period that most businesses seem to think is some kind of grace period that they are entitled to. Sometimes, someone has to sign-off an invoice, so there's another thirty days, and sometimes people just don't care, so there's another thirty days, if not more. And no-one seems to consider the hardship or cash-flow problems this can cause to whoever the money is owed to. What you do might be dependent on how much you want repeat business. If it's a big company, then the person paying the bills probably isn't the person dealing with your business, so you might be able to make more of a pain of yourself by re-invoicing, chasing up, etc., without damaging your chances of more work. If it's a smaller company then you have to decide how hard you can press things without losing business. In the UK, it is relatively easy to take people and companies to court for non-payment of debts. It is sometimes the case, though, that it costs more to recover the debt in time and effort than the debt is worth, so that should be considered. Too often, unfortunately, there is little you can do that won't leave you out of pocket. If it happens regularly, and you do a lot of invoicing, then it might be worth looking at using a factoring company. Feb 05 15 04:19 am Link Artemis Bare wrote: That's going to backfire. Knowing that, I'd hang on to the check until I got the performance. Then, after the applause dies down, you'd get paid. Feb 05 15 04:20 am Link Artemis Bare wrote:
Feb 05 15 04:36 am Link The only time .i have not been paid, is when, even after a few tries, the client was unhappy with the photos and I wasn't comfortable taking a truck driver off his regular route and putting him in the middle of a city in which he was not familiar. Clean walk away, so I never invoiced them. Aside from that, I give everyone 45 days: 30 as their regular turnaround time for accounting, and the rest for the post office to get off their butts. Before sending an invoice though, i always give them a week/week and a half to look over the photos, make sure everything is okay. Then send an invoice with the note, that, should there be an issue with the photos to let me know asap and I will return to retake or will reprocess them to their desired effect. Never had a problem. Feb 05 15 05:23 am Link Your only real recourse, is to have conducted business in a totally professional manner, and have the documentation of the agreements entered into, to prove your case in court. Which is why you need to have a reasonable expectation, that your clients are going to keep their end of the bargain, so you will not need to spend a lot of time in court. Feb 05 15 05:48 am Link In general, I believe... An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case (clients paying you), you might consider the following: ... Have a written contract that they sign before the first exposure is made, ... Make sure the contract has a late payment clause / fee clearly documented, ... Consider having the client pay a deposit before the photography starts, ... Be prompt & professional with your invoices: --- Use professional forms (and software? Like Quickbooks?) --- Make sure the late fees are listed on the invoice (e.g. $20, or if paid after xx/xx/2015, $25) --- Get the invoices in the mail within a week of the delivery of the promised goods --- Deliver the photographs / deliverables to the client quickly ... Allow an appropriate amount of time for the client to pay -- I hate it when an invoice gives me only 2 days before my payment is due -- give enough time for them to pay. ... Don't be shy about reissuing the invoice a month or so later, with a big red stamp saying "PAST DUE" on it. In addition, don't get too excited if it takes a time for them to pay -- their processes & procedures might be slow. Be patient. Note: You are within your rights to take legal action, but taking legal action could kill your career -- you'll never work for that client (or his friends & associates) ever again. On the other hand, a collection agency might be an alternative to you, that is if the amount owed is significant enough & the agency is professional enough. Feb 05 15 08:12 am Link we always get some money upfront so if we get stiffed on the back-end at least we got something. we've had to write a few off as bad debt. do you have a lawyer friend who can write a letter? but might be best to call them and see what's up before getting a lawyer involved. are they low on funds or somehow unhappy about the work? or ... when we do our accounts receivable i'll usually send them an email saying "today is accounting day here at dumb luck studios and we're not showing payment on invoice 3201. can you check your records?" one thing is don't skip doing A/R. once they are past 30 days then send them an email about it. Feb 06 15 10:18 am Link Artemis Bare wrote: I was going to suggest attack drones, but your method sounds way worse. Feb 06 15 03:04 pm Link 1. Never hand over images until the final payment is made. 2. If your contract states terms that override #1, then you need to stipulate that the actual licensing of the images is not to begin until final payment is made. 3. If your contract states that both #1 and/or #2 have not happened by the schedule in the contract, stipulate a "late fee". I usually go by 5% per month after the first day of late payment. In the email you send them as a response to why you are not being paid on time, you need to stipulate that the client is now in breach of contract and that any use of the photos at that point, in any capacity whatsoever, is now a violation of copyright. Feb 06 15 03:39 pm Link OZ photography wrote: 1) There's "slow", there's "late", and there's "refusing to pay" -- these are different things. ontherocks wrote: I presume that the folks who jump at invoking lawyers & courts have had little experience with lawyers & courts. Feb 07 15 08:28 am Link Looknsee Photography wrote: OZ photography wrote: 1) There's "slow", there's "late", and there's "refusing to pay" -- these are different things. Like, perhaps a polite inquiry, by whatever method, IE: EMail, Snail Mail, Phone Call even. Feb 07 15 03:28 pm Link The client signs a contract when the invoice is paid, it is paid in full before the shoot. No payment, no shoot but you do get a cancellation fee if it's within 'x' hours of shoot time to be paid before we consider rescheduling. I've had people ask to make split payments which I do accept but it still must be paid in full before the shoot. Feb 10 15 11:52 am Link Artemis Bare wrote: You'd need to levitate outside of my 4th Floor condo window, although I suppose you could hijack the window cleaner's deck and wheel it over in front of my windows! You'd be competing with the little black dog that's always out there with Chain Smoking Lady though, as well as the screaming Jewish woman a few doors over and the woman who sings then barks like a dog then sings some more in the building across from mine on Sunday & Tuesday nights at like 12:30'1 AM Feb 10 15 06:56 pm Link |
