Piecing together a steady stream of work and keeping on top of your finances are two skills every freelancer needs to master early on to cut it as a solo worker. Still, often it’s getting paid–-and paid on time–that can become a freelancer’s biggest hurdle. The work is done and delivered, yet you’re still sitting on thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices.
It’s a common complaint for independent workers across industries. In arecent survey by the Freelancers Union, nearly half of participants reported problems with getting paid. According to Sara Horowitz, labor lawyer and founder of the Freelancers Union, member freelancers are owed more than $10,000 in unpaid invoices and spend an estimated 36 hours tracking down each missing payment.
The Freelancers Union has been vocal about theneed to hold companies accountable for paying contract workers on time–-even launching apublic ad campaignon New York subways this month to address the issue. Some startups are seeing this as a business opportunity.Fundbox, for example, focuses on lending to startups to help them pay freelancers without delay;鱼叉offers financial planning, invoicing, and goal-setting app features for freelancers; and sites likeShakelet you create and send legally binding agreements.
But while advocates and startups are galvanizing around the issue, there are still practical and essential steps every freelancer should follow to protect themselves and take matters into their own hands.
Look Out For Problem Clients From The Start
通常，如果您知道新客户接近时要注意的问题标志，通常可以完全避免获得付款的问题。Ilise Benun, author of the bookThe Creative Professional’s Guide to Money。她说：“在您甚至进入合同和存款阶段之前，您需要知道问题客户的危险信号。”
Benun identifies fives types ofproblem clients提防：
1. The chaotic client:This is the person who flakes on every meeting, is always late, canceling, rescheduling, or seems constantly frazzled. We all encounter some chaos in our workdays, but if you’re working for someone who is continuously in a frantic and forgetful state, chances are they won’t be the most timely when it comes to getting you paid.
2. The clueless client:They want to hire you, but don’t know what they want and need and how much it ought to cost. From the start, work to establish clarity with this kind of client, but if they really don’t know what they want and aren’t willing to pay your rates, you’re better off not getting involved.
3.混蛋：You know who they are. It can be easy to spot these problem clients from the get-go. If they don’t treat you with the kind of respect you’re giving them, trust your gut and avoid the headache.
4.廉价的糖：Everyone wants a good deal. But remember what your rates are and don’t let anyone try to talk you into giving them a lower rate because they’re being cheap. “It could be that they don’t know what it should cost and you have to educate them,” says Benun. That, “or they are really cheap and don’t value your services in the first place.”
5.大孔：通常会出现工作机会，这确实不会引起您的兴趣。客户本身没有错；您只是不参加工作。Benun说：“当您不想要该项目时，这是一个危险信号。”很难说不工作，如果您真的不在乎一个项目，那么很有可能您不会尽力而为，并可能对雇用您的客户感到怨恨。
The bottom line, according to Benun: “Protect yourself by saying no to the bad clients.”
知道工作在进行之前对您意味着什么
Say your client doesn’t raise any major red flags and you’re ready to start a new assignment. Take time to consider what the particular job means to you, says attorney Nicole Page, partner atReavis Parent Lehrer LLP, where she specializes in entertainment, intellectual property, and employment law. Are you in it just for the money? Do you care about the ideas and work you’re producing and hope to do something more with them down the line? Think this through in advance. “It’s hard when you’re just trying to build a career and get your work out there,” says Page. “But you need to think: ‘What do I want to do with this piece of material?'”
Thinking through what work means to you is important, because you’ll likely be signing some sort of copyright agreement that either passes off all rights to the client or enables you to license the work for a certain period of time or limited use. “If you’re contributing something of a creative nature, it might be very important to you, whether it’s an ownership deal or a licensing deal,” says Page.
Typically, there are three common options when it comes to ownership:
- Work for hire:Everything you create is treated as if it was created by and for the client exclusively. They own the copyright and can do with it as they please.
- A license:You license the use of the work for a certain amount of time or on a certain platform, but the copyright ultimately comes back to you.
- A straight buyout:This has the same result as work for hire. You’ve created the work, and the client then buys all the rights for it.
Contract Fundamentals
Don’t let the idea of an official contract scare you. “A written contract doesn’t have to be a really long involved legal document, which people tend to get intimidated by,” says Stephen Fishman, legal expert and author of the bookWorking for Yourself。只要涵盖了工作的基本原理 - 您是谁，工作是什么，您获得了多少薪水以及何时以及谁拥有工作 - 您应该拥有基本知识。也就是说，有一些书面文档概述这些详细信息总是很重要的，即使是电子邮件或简单的信件协议。在线资源Shakeoffer a fairly easy way to generate contract agreements including your specific project details.
Page advises freelancers ensure certain specifics that too often get left out of contracts. For writers, for example, it’s important to indicate how many rounds of comments and rewrites are part of the project. Commit to two rewrites, and anything after that would require that you get paid an hourly or day rate for additional work.
A clause that protects you against legal claims and one that indicates a specific pay period–be it 10 days, 15, 30, or more–must also be included so that clients know what window of time they have to pay you in upfront, says Page.
Freelancers can get a bad rap as being flakey or unprofessional when they don’t follow those basic business procedures. “The biggest thing I tell people is read what you are signing. Don’t just sign it. Think about it. Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” says Page. “People think, ‘If I ask, the deal is going to go away.'” But that’s simply not true. “Look at it like: ‘This is my business,'” she says. “You have to learn how to be a business person.”
如何构建正确的客户互瑞
人们经常发现谈论金钱极为不舒服。但是避免话题是一个重大错误。Benun说：“首先，很多人在谈论金钱时遇到问题，尤其是当他们每小时收费并且不让客户知道有多少金钱和时间被赚钱时。”确保在整个过程中交流您花了多少时间，以确保发票到达时不会感到侧面磨损。“你必须过度交流，”贝努尼说。“只要使您的客户定期更新您的预算位置，只是使您的流程成为一部分。”
What To Do When Payments Are Late
It’s inevitable that even after taking all the right steps, your payments still aren’t coming in on time.When following up on invoices, there are a few fundamentals to keep in mind. Often the problem isn’t that a freelancer doesn’t have a contract in place, it’s that they aren’t using it properly. “It needs to be done in the most impersonal way possible,” says Benun. “You really have to be very professional about it.”
Revisit your contract. If a payment is past the window of time you specified it should be made in, let your client know the payment terms have been breached. “Don’t harass immediately,” says Benun. Often late payments are a result of miscommunication, invoices getting lost in the shuffle, or other internal hiccups. If it’s been 32 days since you filed an invoice and you haven’t been paid, let them know the payment is two-days past due. If that’s not enough, keep following up. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” says Benun.
Pulling Out The Big Guns
There’s only so much pestering you can do when a payment isn’t being made. If the amount of money you’re waiting on is significant enough that it’s more important for you to be paid than to continue working with that client in the future, you can always take what Fishman calls the “nuclear option” and sue the client in small claims court. “It’s a great way to collect a relatively small debt,” says Fishman.
Still, before going that route, it might be more effective to simply have a lawyer write a letter to let the client know you’re serious.
Planning So Late Payments Don’t Ruin You Financially
Benun说，避免延迟付款毁灭财务状况的关键是制定了坚实的营销计划。她说：“我需要知道根据我的月收入以及在实现目标之间需要做什么的情况。”“您这样做的方式是通过营销。”
By marketing, she means having a regular plan in place to努力更多工作当您的财务表明您可能很短时，您可以转向。这可能很简单，就像致力于每个月参加一个网络活动，以帮助产生新的线索，每月向您的联系人发送一个通讯，或者每月花一个小时打电话或向以前的客户发送有关潜在新工作的电话。
“There is definitely a feast or famine quality to freelance work,” says Benun. “When people get stuck, they have no foundation to build on.” Get that foundation in place, and you’ll be in a much better position to take control of your finances–late payments or not.