Simplify Your Contractor Invoice for Customer Service

Contractor invoice for Customer Service

i had one of my voiceover students contact me the other day and said that she'd done some work for a company and they've been very happy with it and they'd agreed a price she completed the work on time all gone swimmingly well and then she waited waited to be paid waited a couple of weeks no payment she thought well fair enough it's only been two weeks a month went by still nothing then another month still no payment and then 90 days had elapsed and still no no payment from the client and she was saying to me is there something she could do to kind of jolt the the client into paying just nudge them in a nice way without necessarily hacking them off because she may want to work with them again in the future but at the same time get that money through because after all she'd done the work to a high standard and they hadn't kept their side of the bargain she hadn't been paid and um it's really annoying and frustrating when that happens and it happens to all of us at some point so there are some things i think you can do and and this is the advice i'd give to you if you've got a a reluctant payer and here's how to kind of nudge them along in a nice way but also a firm way firstly it's always important to send your client an invoice and say how and when payment has to be made you've got to be really clear on that and then if you've still not received the payment after 30 days then your next step is to send an email to your contact at the production company and say that payment has to be made by a specific date make sure you put that date down so everyone knows what it is and if still no payment send a final reminder with another specific payment date it is these specific dates that are really important and then mention you will have no option but to undertake county court proceedings in the small claims court so this is if you've still not been paid and bear in mind legal proceedings are a very last resort and the court will need to see that you've given your client plenty of time to pay and offered options such as installment payments so i think the key takeaway to this is clarity you've got to be really clear when you want to be paid so don't leave it up to the client help them along and say when you first issue that invoice i want to be paid within 30 days please and then if they haven't paid a nice gentle reminder saying oh you've probably forgotten but you know it's now beyond the 30 days and then start mentioning specific dates when you want to be paid so i need to be paid by and then maybe a week two weeks and then if that hasn't happened you could issue another one and and say it really needs to be paid by the blah blah blah 30th of april or whatever and if not then you can mention the small claims court now it's important not to threaten your client because that could go against you you've got to be friendly at all times but you've also got to be understanding of the client so if they're having trouble in paying then you can offer an installment payment and always say how you want the client to pay some people completely forget and just expect the client to know sometimes the client themselves may say okay we do a bank transfer or we use paypal or whatever but you can take the lead on that i think that's important at the end of the day it's about being really clear about what you want and having those staging posts as you go along so the client is then reminded that actually they owe you some money so good luck with that i hope you get paid on time thanks very much for watching today look after your voice and see you next time [Music] you