A contract will clear up confusion. It lets your client know how much to expect to be paid and in what time frame. It is the parameters of a job spelled out with as much detail as you feel you need.
It wont stop someone from not paying you. It will remove the excuse of “We didn’t know it would cost THAT much”.
Have you talked with the client? Do they know you are unhappy?
I have contracts in place with very specific terms. No matter what the differences in situation, some high paying clients are late consistently, change their minds on design, not providing all the details at project start, etc. It’s not anything I am doing wrong - the terms are very clear. If I was shorted for a very extended period of time (I think about 5-6 months,) I would threaten legal action. But for the most part, a contract is a must. But, there’s just no guarantee that the client follows the terms exactly. The contract there is for information and legal recourse.
And yes, I do have a backbone (I take offense to that statement) - I can be stern when necessary, but that doesn’t always work. I’m also a very nice guy, but I wouldn’t hesitate to give someone flat tires if pushed the wrong way.
I guess the question is - how flexible should one be? If someone pays you $100,000 to build a mall, do you complain to them if it’s 2 months late?
http://smallbusiness.dnb.com/collect-debt/browse-products.asp
This doesn’t cost very much and someone else can be the hard ass.
These guys are little more intimidating because of their association with D&B.
I’ve heard there are companies that do this as standard practice they move from vendor to vendor exhausting their credit and only pay the squeaky wheels when necessary.
If it’s a big project for a new customer I ask for a percentage up front like 30% with an additional 30% part way through and specify that I will provide the final product when I receive payment in full. We are not big corporations that can afford to extend credit like other suppliers.
would be intersting to see what kind of project cost that much , is it just visualization or also design?
$5,000, $10,000, $25,000, $50,000, or $100,000 - it’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s all relative to expenses, time involved, complexity, people hired, equipment, software, where you live (Egypt or NYC), etc. Does it have 10 minutes worth of flythrough animations, 140 condominium units with pools and a city in the background? A website and marketing brochures? Do you have 4 people you are paying and taxes as well? Things can add up - but no matter what, you have to cover your own costs.
And no, personally I haven’t had one at 100 but I’ve known people to go over that - even over 400.
My latest situation was a good/repeat client that said, ‘we cannot process the retainer at the moment (1/3), but when we cut checks in two weeks we can pay you the full amount. Is that okay with you?’
And what was I supposed to say - No? We needed the work. Unfortunately, I waited two months. I ended up just calling their accounting department directly yesterday, complained, and they said they would courier a check over today.
Good to here you’ve got it sorted (nearly!).
I have a similar thing with one of my clients, a tad slow on paying (90% of the time), which usually ends up me calling the accounts Dep.
Alot of its down to the date I invoice them, they have a cut-off date for invoices to be in so as you get paid that month.
Usually this date has a nasty habit of changing from month to month!.. Which then means my invoice gets forgotten about…
Its always an interesting debate…mostly i think becasue we all want/need the work/money. The funny thing is that if you inversed the situation it just would not fly at all. Imagine you give them there images/animations 2 months after their deadline when they agreed that you could be a week late. Wouldn;t happened…they wold be climbing all over you ass through email/phone/ lawyers or whatever. I got burned once and after really thinking about what happened i came to believe it was how i conducted myself. I let them feel/know that i needed them more then they needed me. Once they know that they will take advantage of it…especially if there is little or no opposition. My last email to my client was that all further communication would be with my lawyer…i had my checque the next day.
I should add -my first client was late to me by six months on $600!
I complained and was really angry, but still remained professional. A year later, I had two more substantially larger projects from him (with a new firm) all of which was paid on time. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to burn your bridges. 