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.