Ok, as a savvy translator you were a good boy/girl, you
only took the job from the client after checking payment practice lists, asking
your translator pals for information, getting a valid purchase order or your own
signed order form and so on. You know their full address and all the other
relevant details. It’s time for them to pay, but still they don't seem to want
to cough up for the job that you did. You're now hearing childish excuses; "the
cheque’s in the post", "the boss is in Outer Mongolia and can't authorise the
payment", "we don't have a PayPal account", “actually darling
our payment terms are 365 days,
you should have known that", “the cat ate your invoice”, or even worse "who are
you?". Actually having the audacity to ask for the money that they agreed to pay
you will sometimes leave you open to a flood of abuse. What can you do?
Don’t put up with it. Make sure that the paperwork is in
order before you start the work. Check the terms that you’re setting or agreeing
to, and make sure you’re happy with them. It’s perfectly alright to have different terms for
different clients, use your own discretion; some clients you will know well,
others will be new to you. What’s important is not what they’re telling you when
they haven’t paid up, but what was agreed between you at the time the work was
ordered.
Keep track of when invoices are due to be paid. Wait
until the invoice is due. Give them a few days grace if you want to.
The minute you feel that you’re going down that slippery slope to an unpaid
bill, take some action. Send out a reminder; tell them it has to be paid
immediately. Give them maybe 5 working days to digest this and sort out a
payment. No money yet? Send them a final reminder – no, call it a
demand. Put the amount due in red, put
the word demand in red, use red a lot, red is your friend!
Don’t say please or thank you too much, make it sound firm and professional
but polite – as a writer, you know how to do this. Don’t put the reminder in an
e-mail that says “Sorry to bother you but…” Be brave! It’s your money, you
worked for it, and essentially you’ve been lending it to the client from the day
that you sent them the finished work. This isn’t a little hobby of yours, it’s
business.
Don’t just send these reminders by e-mail. If it’s a large amount of money
and you feel it’s worth the expense, send them a real letter (what’s that?!) by registered mail that someone has to sign for. Send them a faxed copy as well as an e-mail copy. Make sure that all your communications are addressed to someone relevant, the project manager, or the head of the accounts department, or the boss! Phone that relevant person to ask them if they've received the document. Keep phoning and writing and generally making a nuisance.
Quite often this is enough to get the payment through. However, on occasion, even bombarding them in this way doesn’t work. At some point, you will decide you’ve had enough of their shenanigans. Now it’s up to you how long you give them, but personally, I run out of patience pretty quick. So, when you've reached the end of the line, what’s next?
“No, I can’t afford a lawyer!” I hear you cry. Here’s the good news; you don't have to take them to court yet. That's the final course of action (and I don't have experience of that, so I won't cover it here). There are some handy little outfits that are happy to call in your unpaid invoices for you and do all the dirty work of annoying the client for you. No, it's not me and my gang of hired goons! It’s a debt collection agency. Most of these are perfectly respectable, anyone in business will be aware of them, and they really aren't as expensive as you might think. For example, I have an invoice worth around £350 to me. The fee for collecting the debt is fixed at around £15. If the debt isn’t repaid, they don’t charge. Seems reasonable doesn't it?
Bear in mind that they will usually charge less for collecting on invoices less than 60 days old than for those over that limit. It will also cost you more to call in a debt from another country. Pick a big respectable debt collection firm with branches in many countries. Before you take on a new client in another country, you can ask the firm what they would charge you for calling in an invoice from that country. Decide if it’s worth the risk, or if you need some money upfront.
Something else that you really need to get straight; do not, under any circumstances, accept more work from that client until the full amount for the unpaid invoice is safely in your bank. They may well be trying to entice you with a project the size of which would pay for a ticket to the Sea of Tranquillity, but, (and I really mean but) such tempting delights are totally worthless until they prove to you that they can pay. Make this clear to them; “Just deposit xx into my bank first for that unpaid invoice, and when the payment clears I’ll consider taking on the new work”. If they do that, and you still want to take it, negotiate money up front. If they don't like that, let them go and take some other person for a ride.
Take a look at this little document which I send out to my clients. These are
my own terms, it’s up to you what you come up with, but it says it all really:
- Our standard payment terms are 30
days from the date of our invoice (normally the day after delivery of
the work). We send both e-mail and paper copies.
- As soon as an invoice becomes overdue, no further
work will be accepted from the client until the invoice is paid and the funds
have cleared. A reminder will be sent.
- If the account remains unpaid, we will send a final
demand before referring the invoice to our debt collection agent (below).
- Japanese2U will refer all outstanding invoices of
more than 50 days to D&B Collection Services to save on
administration and ensure timely payment. This may adversely affect your
company's credit rating.
- Agencies who continually pay late will be asked for
at least a 25% deposit on any future project, with the
balance payable on delivery of the work. We may also ask for full payment in
advance.
- Habitually late payers or non-payers may have their
details published on translation payment practices lists.
- To avoid further action, we ask that any company that
is having real trouble paying invoices get in touch as soon as possible,
preferably before the due date.
- If all of the above measures fail, we will have absolutely no hesitation
in taking appropriate legal action.
I find it helps me if I set firm boundaries that I’m happy with and clearly
state them to the client; this allows me to get on with the job of reeling in
the payment without feeling like Lucretia Borgia.
Now, none of this is very nice, but tell yourself this, you shouldn't have to
do it in the first place. You pay your bills on time don’t you? Why shouldn’t
they. You’ve done the work so they have to pay. Yes, they may get irate and
personal, yes, they may accuse you of all sorts of heinous crimes, yes, they may
go around telling people your work is bad. Who cares! If your work is good, and
your customer service is excellent, then it really doesn’t matter what a cowboy
agency says does it? Recommend this article:  |  |  |  |  |
