Freelancer-client not paying

[Anonymous]

I'm a freelancer. I have a client that has 3 outstanding invoices (1 is over 30 days, 2 over 1 week) worth close to $9,000. I've never been in this situation. What's my next step?

[Anonymous]

Pause any and all work for the client/on the project immediately until they are current. What efforts have you already made to collect?

[Anonymous]

What are your payment terms? The 2 over 1 week wouldn't concern me unless you have immediate payment terms. Be careful not to conflate the one over 30 days with the ones under 30 days.

What kind of client/company is it? The reason I ask is I'm trying to understand if it's a mom and pop or if it's a corporation with a finance/accounts payable department. 30 - 60 days is super common if it has to go through an accounts payable department, especially if you didn't set specific payment terms.

How long have you been working with the client? Is this a new behavior for them?

[Anonymous]

30 days is standard, one week is not. What have you done thus far? Do you have a contract?

[Anonymous]

When this happened to me (for far less money), I got a lawyer to write a short but sweet letter, sent via certified mail. Two of those and I was paid. Do you take credit cards? Paypal? In my case, that was the way to get the money because I don't think the client had the cash on hand and that was the issue. Full disclosure: my husband is the lawyer who wrote the letter, so that part was free and easy.

[Anonymous]

While I have sympathy for you lawyer clients are the worst!!! Last year waited 90 days +/- for $90,000. Everything had to stop as this was a big chunk of income so sweating bullets until finally paid. OK with 30 days but this has become the terrible norm for lawyers. Keep sending/calling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are your payment terms? The 2 over 1 week wouldn't concern me unless you have immediate payment terms. Be careful not to conflate the one over 30 days with the ones under 30 days.

What kind of client/company is it? The reason I ask is I'm trying to understand if it's a mom and pop or if it's a corporation with a finance/accounts payable department. 30 - 60 days is super common if it has to go through an accounts payable department, especially if you didn't set specific payment terms.

How long have you been working with the client? Is this a new behavior for them?

+1 to all of this. I have a lot of interaction with our A/R and A/P departments at our corporation and the process is completely different (as is the guidance I would give you) for small operations versus big companies.

[Anonymous]

Have you contacted them regarding the 30-day invoice? It could easily be in someone's "to-do" pile and just hasn't been approved yet or missed a check-cutting cycle. I think a friendly call to their accounts payable person would be a good first step.

[Anonymous]

OP here

The invoice are paid 30 days after the work is done. The one invoice is now 40 days after the 30 days. The other 2 are 4 days after the 30 days. They are a new-ish client, started working for them in February. They did pay me for 2 previous jobs. They seem to be a small company, but it's hard to tell.

I have emailed and called several times. Each time they say they are going to pay. Nothing happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here

The invoice are paid 30 days after the work is done. The one invoice is now 40 days after the 30 days. The other 2 are 4 days after the 30 days. They are a new-ish client, started working for them in February. They did pay me for 2 previous jobs. They seem to be a small company, but it's hard to tell.

I have emailed and called several times. Each time they say they are going to pay. Nothing happens.

I had this problem with a client and took them to small claims court. (The bill was for $5400, and the limit was $5k. It was close enough.) It was easy (and I'm not a lawyer.) Paid a filing fee of $18, hung around the courtroom, for an hour until my case was called, showed the judge the signed contract and evidence of the completed work, and he ordered the deadbeat to pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here

The invoice are paid 30 days after the work is done. The one invoice is now 40 days after the 30 days. The other 2 are 4 days after the 30 days. They are a new-ish client, started working for them in February. They did pay me for 2 previous jobs. They seem to be a small company, but it's hard to tell.

I have emailed and called several times. Each time they say they are going to pay. Nothing happens.

I had this problem with a client and took them to small claims court. (The bill was for $5400, and the limit was $5k. It was close enough.) It was easy (and I'm not a lawyer.) Paid a filing fee of $18, hung around the courtroom, for an hour until my case was called, showed the judge the signed contract and evidence of the completed work, and he ordered the deadbeat to pay.

What was the deadbeat's excuse?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here

The invoice are paid 30 days after the work is done. The one invoice is now 40 days after the 30 days. The other 2 are 4 days after the 30 days. They are a new-ish client, started working for them in February. They did pay me for 2 previous jobs. They seem to be a small company, but it's hard to tell.

I have emailed and called several times. Each time they say they are going to pay. Nothing happens.

I had this problem with a client and took them to small claims court. (The bill was for $5400, and the limit was $5k. It was close enough.) It was easy (and I'm not a lawyer.) Paid a filing fee of $18, hung around the courtroom, for an hour until my case was called, showed the judge the signed contract and evidence of the completed work, and he ordered the deadbeat to pay.

What was the deadbeat's excuse?

You'll laugh. He actually told the judge that the reason he hadn't paid was because the guy who signs the checks was out of the country, but he will be back in Monday and could pay me then.

But I suppose the judge has heard it all before, and he asked me if I would like to continue the case to the following week in case the guy didn't pay up. I took the judge's hint, and we had a continuation date set for the next Thursday (or whenever). Sure enough, Monday rolls around and the deadbeat calls to tell me the guy who signs checks didn't come back after all. I told him to save his excuses, and he could meet me on the courthouse steps on Thursday morning with the check, or we both go into the courtroom and he can give the judge another excuse.

He had the check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here

The invoice are paid 30 days after the work is done. The one invoice is now 40 days after the 30 days. The other 2 are 4 days after the 30 days. They are a new-ish client, started working for them in February. They did pay me for 2 previous jobs. They seem to be a small company, but it's hard to tell.

I have emailed and called several times. Each time they say they are going to pay. Nothing happens.

I had this problem with a client and took them to small claims court. (The bill was for $5400, and the limit was $5k. It was close enough.) It was easy (and I'm not a lawyer.) Paid a filing fee of $18, hung around the courtroom, for an hour until my case was called, showed the judge the signed contract and evidence of the completed work, and he ordered the deadbeat to pay.

What was the deadbeat's excuse?

You'll laugh. He actually told the judge that the reason he hadn't paid was because the guy who signs the checks was out of the country, but he will be back in Monday and could pay me then.

But I suppose the judge has heard it all before, and he asked me if I would like to continue the case to the following week in case the guy didn't pay up. I took the judge's hint, and we had a continuation date set for the next Thursday (or whenever). Sure enough, Monday rolls around and the deadbeat calls to tell me the guy who signs checks didn't come back after all. I told him to save his excuses, and he could meet me on the courthouse steps on Thursday morning with the check, or we both go into the courtroom and he can give the judge another excuse.

He had the check.

P.S. I had been chasing down that guy for the $5400 for six months. It wasn't like I took him to court after 30 days.

[Anonymous]

Hah, we have one now like this. Our customers are all large organizations, and their payment process and departments are bureaucracies like no other. For one who we invoice annually, they've paid way before the 30 days some years, and other years it took months of houding. We sell a service, and are getting the run-around again. Last "it's on the way" eamil was 3 weeks ago, so we said fine, we'll just program our service to shut off in 3 weeks if we don't have payment. So far no paymnet, and shutudown is tomorrow. Let's see how that goes.. Usually that gets them to pay.

But not to derail the thread. OP, check in every few days on the invoice that's actually way overdue, and say you'll need to stop all work by X date (like a week from now) until all overdue invoices are paid. You could even tease them, like if the work is a work product, tell them it's ready (if it is) and you're all ready to email it, but you just need to receive payment....

[Anonymous]

Op here

Unbelievably, they want to book me for another job. I'm an instructor, so unlike PP, I can't shut off the service. But she m not going to do another job for them until I get paid.

I'm going to keep hounding them. But how long should I give them until I have a lawyer write a letter or take them to court? 60-90-120 days, 6-9 months?