Hi,

I've been freelancing as a Web Designer/Dev now for just over a year and have a couple of regular clients in the way of Media Agencies.

I build the website on my server for them and their clients to see, make amends etc and then once they are happy, I upload the website to their domain.

Then send off my Invoice for payment.

 

Payment can then be received anytime from 2-3 days or 3-4 weeks. Which is a total nuisance on most occasions.

 

Would you recommend that I ask for payment in full before setting the website live? Is this how others do it?

Or am I being too picky?

 

Currently I set the website live, send off the invoice which says 14 days until payment is due. Then I end up chasing half of those up.

 

Thanks in advance

I do the same, and also end up waiting for payment quite often. One way I've thought of to try to address this is by offering a 'discount' for prompt payment. The discounted is actually the amount I'd normally quote for the job, so say it's a £500 job, I'd quote £550 with a £50 discount if you pay by xx.xx.xx

 

Best of luck mate

Ive had that idea too but I think that some of thr companies wouldnt give a s%%t about the discount!??!

Im heading towards, Website goes live on Final Payment. Theyll be in more of a rush to pay then!

Currently I set the website live, send off the invoice which says 14 days until payment is due. Then I end up chasing half of those up.

 

 

From somebody who has also been waiting over 30days for a final payment on a website that is already live you have my sympathy.

 

It's a real pain. I could start disabling the site etc but I'd rather avoid that. It's funny how clients pester you endlessly during the development process but go awfully quiet once the job is done.

 

I think stricter terms and conditions may be in order for me - the whole site only going live once the final bill is paid strategy is tricky, especially if they have already paid staged payments or a substantial deposit.

You always pay for your items before you can leave the shop with them....

We are basically letting them leave the shop and trusting they will pay within a decent time frame.

Tricky situation.

Use the Late Payment of Commercial Debts legislation. As soon as an invoice goes overdue you're entitled to charge a fixed fee (amount depends on the amount of the invoice, but it starts at £40 for amounts of up to £999.99) to cover your recovery costs. From that day you're also entitled to charge interest at 8% + the Bank of England base rate.

 

Like Mike Monteiro said: "**** you. Pay me."

Like Mike Monteiro said

 

It's all very well Mike Monteiro telling us to get a lawyer and they earn him money - this guy is probably doing sites £50,000 - 100,000 worth at a time (picking up some of the things he said).

 

For most freelancers I reckon a solicitor handling your contracts just isn't feasible.

 

He makes some good points overall though.

I'm starting to think that maybe freelancers would benefit from an umbrella organization that could take care of that sort of thing. In exchange for an annual fee or a percentage of their invoices they'd have access to shared accountants, legal representation, contracts etc.

Edited April 13, 201214 yr by Renaissance-Design

I'm starting to think that maybe freelancers would benefit from an umbrella organization that could take care of that sort of thing. In exchange for an annual fee or a percentage of their invoices they'd have access to shared accountants, legal representation, contracts etc.

 

It would be good but it might take a lot of work. Who has the time??

 

There's definitely a need for it judging by the number of web designers who are experiencing the same problems time and again.

Not me at the moment, more's the pity. I'm still stuck in my poorly-planned cycle of spending a month scrabbling for work because I didn't plan ahead, than a month so busy trying to earn two months' worth of money I don't have time to look for more work, rinse and repeat.

Not me at the moment, more's the pity. I'm still stuck in my poorly-planned cycle of spending a month scrabbling for work because I didn't plan ahead, than a month so busy trying to earn two months' worth of money I don't have time to look for more work, rinse and repeat.

 

It still beats working full time for someone else though doesn't it!

If I can sort out something for my payment scheme then I'll be happy.

a) Ask for final payment before site is 'live'

Put in a fee for late payments, which should act as a deterrent.

 

The problem is with not knowing when your going to get paid, is you cannot plan ahead, you cannot spend the money you have just incase your client doesn't pay. All part of the fun I suppose!

To answer the question, always request payment in full before putting the site live. Make sure your contract states this, and sets out specific payment instructions.

 

This is why you need a steady flow of clients to make it as a freelancer, plenty of deposit payments coming in, with larger sums a few weeks later. Also helps to get the odd maintenance and seo package in between

Use the Late Payment of Commercial Debts legislation. As soon as an invoice goes overdue you're entitled to charge a fixed fee (amount depends on the amount of the invoice, but it starts at £40 for amounts of up to £999.99) to cover your recovery costs. From that day you're also entitled to charge interest at 8% + the Bank of England base rate.

 

Thanks for that link. very handy to know that I have some backup for late payments. I'm not 100% sure on this bit though: you're also entitled to charge interest at 8% + the Bank of England base rate Does that mean that I can add 8% of the total invoice fee ( ie. Invoice = £100, 8% would then be £8 ), per day it's late? Plus the Reference rate of 0.5%, making it 8.5% currently.

So in my example I could add the fee of £40 and then £8.50 per day overdue....?

 

Is that correct?

 

Cheers,

Edited April 16, 201214 yr by welshhuw

Thanks for that link. very handy to know that I have some backup for late payments. I'm not 100% sure on this bit though: you're also entitled to charge interest at 8% + the Bank of England base rate Does that mean that I can add 8% of the total invoice fee ( ie. Invoice = £100, 8% would then be £8 ), per day it's late? Plus the Reference rate of 0.5%, making it 8.5% currently.

So in my example I could add the fee of £40 and then £8.50 per day overdue....?

 

Is that correct?

 

Cheers,

 

8.5%pa.

Hi

 

I always use a staged payment process - depending upon company size / costs etc I usually get between 25-50% up front with balance due on sign off. If they are not prepared to commit to a deposit then I don't do the work.

 

You can set out in your project brief key milestones which can for example include a staged sign off point and where you can potentially say a percentage of the payment is due at that point.

 

Example stages

 

1. Initial brief

2. Draft design layout with placeholder/default copy (if approved arrange deposit)

3. Design sign off

4. Content and copy sign off (% of balance to be paid here)

5. User testing and final amends

6. Sign off and handover (balance to be paid)

 

This way they don't have one large amount to pay - which is always their excuse for witholding payment, you can even build in penalty clauses, ie stage 4 is dependent upon them coming up with copy / graphics or whatever. What I do though, instead of offering discounts for prompt payment etc, which as mentioned earlier may look cheap or give wrong impression, I build in a 'refund percentage' if I don't hit the stage target (my fault not theirs).

 

May not suit everyne but it seems to work for me - so far

Davey's method

 

Depending on the size of the project I do similar too - trouble is getting the final payment seems to be tricky sometimes

I agree but I would rather be chasing the last 20% or so then 100% !

 

It also stands you in good stead if they have committed by paying 75-80% up to the point it goes live, they are less likley to mess you about if the other stages have gone smoothly.

 

I understand we take a risk by launching it without final payment but there has to be some give and take, I have found once they know I mean business and don't start the next stage until the agreed payments are made, by the time I get to launch it's not usally a problem.

 

The only thing I would hold back with are maybe the login / ftp details etc if it's a site I have built from scratch with hosting etc for them. I learnt very early on that building a site over two/three months etc and all that involves is madness without any up front payment - otherwise I am working for nothing!

 

Believe it after a while the good old 'Word of Mouth' is your best friend and when they trust you, some referral clients have actually just paid the full wack up front.

 

One tip - don't invoice them over the Xmas period or during August !!!

Edited April 17, 201214 yr by DaveyL