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8 Essential Rules To Get Paid On Time
SavingsEntrepreneur
We read daily about how difficult it is to get paid on time when you are self-employed. Many times the excuses of companies are they must first pay larger companies or that they get a lot of taxes this month.
In the case of the self-employed, it is even more critical to charge on time for their work, since they live exclusively on this income. In this article, we will see some recommendations to get paid on time.
Table of Contents
Train your mindset to get paid on time
When you start working as a freelancer, and you obtain your first clients, you usually depend on them and do what they ask for, so they continue to require your services. The fact is that many times it is better to establish certain limits and previously define how far you would go in case they don’t pay you or don’t pay on time.
Some critical points to consider
You may think that in your situation you cannot do without clients, even if they pay you late, but consider the following points:
– If the company/professional is late in their payment, you are already thinking of it to see when they will pay you. If you don’t tell them anything, you will have to insist by calling again and “asking for explanations”.
– Being aware of the non-payment causes you to lose some time every day that you could use to find other clients or improve processes in your company.
– The concern that generates you not getting paid and not knowing when you will do it goes further. When talking to potential clients, you go with a point of skepticism: “let’s see if this one is not going to pay either”. This type of negative energy often causes you to lose business opportunities.
– If you live exclusively from your income as self-employed (or you pretend it), this can disappoint you. It could even make you decide to stop trying to establish yourself as self-employed and look for employment.
On the other hand, you do whatever for your first clients, even not sign any service contract or a document of payment agreement. So after a while, some companies deny you have done the work for them, so they don’t have to pay you. It may seem incredible, but there are people like that!
Key points to get paid on time
To protect you and start your business relationships properly, we have compiled a few suggestions.
Set your basic rules
Set your basic rules and how far you would go. For example, charge from 1 to 10 every month and wait until 15. If they don’t pay until the 15th, you won’t accomplish more work.
Say NO
Learn to say “no”. If they don’t agree with your basic rules, don’t try to adapt and think that “I’ll do an exception only for this time”. Next time you have to tell them there is no deal.
You cannot please everyone, and some clients are not worth the investment of your time.
Sign a contract
Have a firm contract and the terms established with an agreement signed by both parties.
Payments in advance
Ask for a 50% payment in advance before the work begins. That way you can be sure of at least half part if there is finally a non-payment.
Offer at least two types of payment to give several options, for example, bank transfer and credit card payment.
Adding offers
Include offers for customers who pay early. For example: “10% off if you pay the full amount before starting the project”.
Send an email with all payment information
Make sure you send the email with your invoice to the correct email address and with enough details about the payment method. Ask for confirmation that they received the email to avoid delays.
Be positive
Don’t be evil-minded from the first moment if they are late in payment. Get in touch with your client calmly, since in many cases it is due to a genuine mistake in the remittance of domiciliation, etc.
As the Law of Attraction says: “What you focus on expands.” [SaudiDiva]. If you focus on not getting paid, it may eventually come true. So choose wisely what you visualize.
Be patient
Finally, and this advice is valid especially for those self-employed whose client is some Administration, arm yourself with patience!
We all know that the Administrations take a long time to pay, but they ask for work to be done on time. If you are starting, do not devote all your time to work for the Administrations, because you may delay in charging and enter the loop of frustration.
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