Published But Not-Paid Part II - How To Extract Payment From
Sticky Fingered Editors!
Having a proper strategy in place to eliminate payment confusion
will go a long way in avoiding unnecessary problems caused by
misunderstandings, (see the part one of this article), but there
will be occasions when the agreed payment period has passed and
your precious cheque has not arrived!
The following is a list of steps you need to follow to stand the
best chance of collecting payment.
1. Send out your invoice either when the contract is completed
or at the month end. (Part I of this article explains what an
Invoice is).
2. At the end of each month send out a Statement. A Statement is
much the same as an invoice except it lists all the separate,
unpaid invoices that you may have sent out to the same client or
publication. Statements, as do invoices come in all shapes and
sizes but all contain the same things, a number, the date, what
is owed and what is over due, plus your contact details of
course and those of the publication.
3. Allow a week for the Statement to provoke a reaction. If no
cheque arrives, telephone.
4. Ask to speak to whoever deals with the accounts. It may be
the editor, in which case you will already know his or her name.
If it is someone in the accounts department make sure that you
get their name and write it down.
5. Don't get angry! You may be on the breadline and have worked
night and day to meet the deadline but losing your temper rarely
achieves anything. Keep calm and ask if they have received your
invoice and if so when can you expect payment.
6. Usually this is all you need to do. Wait the appointed time
and the money will likely turn up as promised. Occasionally
however you will have to work a bit harder.
7. Phone again and say that the cheque hasn't yet arrived and
ask if there is a problem. You must note down what they say as
it could be important if things turn nasty. If there is a
problem then of course you will have to sort it out, if not then
there is no reason why you shouldn't be paid so again try and
pin them down as to when the cheque will be forthcoming. If the
sum is large you may like to consider offering to fetch it.
(Always assuming of course this isn't the other side of the
planet!). A disarming, "I'll be in your area tomorrow, could I
call in?" is a very face saving phrase that keeps every ones
dignity in tact!
8. If this isn't practical or you are told it isn't possible you
will have to run with it a little longer. Wait again for the
cheque to turn up when it was promised, if it doesn't telephone
again. It does by this stage become annoying but you still
mustn't loose your temper, it really doesn't achieve anything.
Kick the chair if you must, but stay calm with accounts and
you'll have a better chance of winning the day.
9. Still no cheque? O.K. now's the time to start getting heavy.
Send a letter explaining that if payment is not received within
7 days you will be taking steps to recover the fee through the
small claims court. Point out that if this becomes necessary
interest will be charged on the debt for the whole period it
remains over due.
10. Assuming this has fallen on deaf ears you are now faced with
having to follow through with your threat of the small claims
court. If things reach this pitch there is no need to be
alarmed. You don't need a solicitor and all the forms can be
obtained from most stationeries or from the web. You will have
to shell out a small fee to set the process in motion but this
is added to the total debt and will be recovered along with the
original outstanding amount.
Once your client receives this he is faced with two choices.
Either he can pay up, (by far the most likely), or he can
contest it. If the later choice is made then you will both have
to go to an arbitration court where a decision will be made in
favour of one or the other with the loser being responsible for
all costs.
Again it is well to keep things in perspective. I have used the
small claims court twice in over twenty years of freelancing.
Once against a client who refused to pay for work he
commissioned as his client went into liquidation, (he paid up as
soon as the court summons arrived so it never went to
arbitration).
The second was against the publisher of a magazine franchise who
owned me a considerably amount of cash in unpaid advertising. In
this case she contested the claim. However, I was convinced I
was in the right and stuck to my guns fully prepared to fight it
out at arbitration. Two days before the case was due to be heard
a fax came from her solicitors saying that a cheque in full
settlement would be in the post that day.
This link will take you to the Small Claims Advisory service
which will explain the Small Claims Court procedure in detail.
http://www.small-claims.co.uk/
What though about the web? Clients are not necessarily in the
same country, so how do you collect your money and recover bad
debts?
There is no easy answer to this as different countries are
subject to different laws and it can often be difficult to find
out just where the hand that actually grasps the cheque book
actually is! However, there are some pointers that will help
keep potential trouble to a minimum.
Contracts obtained through the job bidding sites often have
their own payment systems in place. Guru.com for example
operates the SafePay system this works by Guru collecting the
payment from the employer, deducting their expenses and then
passing on the proceeds to the contractor. It generates invoices
and receipts all of which can be seen through the contractor's
personal control panel. Elance has a similar system in place
which is explained in detail in its very comprehensive user
manual, available for download from the site.
Another popular method utilised by people doing business on the
web is the Escrow system. There are fees involved, mainly based
on a percentage of the transaction, but it does more or less
eliminate the bad debt problem.
Doing a little research about the publication that you propose
working for can also pay dividends. This can range from simply
visiting your favourite search engine and typing in the name to
doing full blown credit checks. You may think that a basic
search engine query is not going to produce much of a result but
you would be surprised at what gets posted on the web these
days.
As an example, a few months ago I was approached by a self
publishing company who wanted to take a considerable amount of
advertising space on Writelink. Having had no dealings with this
company before I ran a quick search on Google and immediately
found some rather alarming postings. Needless to say we didn't
do business and very glad I am too since the owner subsequently
did a moonlight flit, leaving dozens of very unhappy clients and
creditors behind.
Talking of writers websites, you will find that some of these
include warning listings of publications to be avoided. Writelin
includes this facility, but you will also find a very
comprehensive listing on Preditors and Editors.
Finally, do keep everything in perspective. You will almost
certainly get your fingers burnt on at least one occasion, but
operate your writing business efficiently and professionally and
payment problems should be kept to a minimum.