tranfree issue 37 - 06 August 2001

How Big A Deal Is Non-Payment And Late Payment?

Alex Eames

Following on from my bad experiences of dealing with friends and family, I decided to take a look at how many clients we've had over the past few years that have...

• not paid us
• paid excessively late
• queried quality, leading to reduced payment

I ignored those who pay a bit late, because that's nearly everybody I regard a week or two late as pretty normal. Other people in various mailing lists get very irate about it - but I don't see the need to chase people when their payment is 12 nanoseconds overdue.

Non-Payers

Over the last 5 years we have had only 4 non-payers that I can find in our records. Fortunately for us these have mostly been small(ish) jobs...

• 130 pounds (company went out of business)
• 100 pounds (my cousin)
• 50 pounds
• 25 pounds

The average is roughly 60 pounds per year. Not too bad, but could be better - like ZERO! If we'd have had any larger ones, we'd have passed them to a debt collector.

Late Payers

A significant minority of our clients pay after the stated period on our invoice (30 days).

This is partly due to the British mentality of...

"pay at the end of the month after the invoice is dated"

i.e. If you send your invoice in September, you get paid at the end of October.

We've always accepted this - as I said above, a couple of weeks we don't fret about.

But a small percentage pay substantially late (a month or 3 after the due date). These are usually clients we don't work for more than once - unless we're desperate

Arguers

Surprisingly enough, these are the ones who have caused us the largest financial losses. Not so much any more, but in the early days we occasionally took on jobs which may have been slightly too hard for our ability. And we were not wise about what sort of situations to avoid.

In the main case, a large job involved a fee reduction of around 1500 pounds. That was a lesson well learned I can tell you. You can argue until you are blue in the face. But in the end, it is better to agree a settlement than to waste a lot of time and money chasing through the legal system.

Conclusion

In summary...

• non-payment has not been a significant problem
  
  
• arguments over quality (usually caused by company politics or poor communication) have cost us a lot more than non-payment or late payment.
  
  
• late payment is a minor headache, but we put up with it as a cost of doing business. Excessively late payment usually finds us unwilling to work for that client again.

Horror Stories

I've heard great horror stories recently in various online groups which indicate that some people definitely do get ripped off by clients.

If you follow the procedure outlined on page 42 of...

How to Earn $80,000+ per Year as a Freelance Translator
http://www.translatortips.net/ht50.html

...you will minimise your chances of getting...

...burned.