To wonder why people think it's ok not to pay tradespeople?

[MrsWinnibago]

Just musing. I work as a freelance writer...don't judge my skills by the stuff I write on here! This is my resting place and I let everything go to pot here.

Anyway...I have a client who is great in that he's always there with lots work for me but he always takes a few days to pay me.

I invoice on the Monday for eg. and he goes to ground for a few days. I don't see why freelancers and tradespeople have to wait.

My DH is a painter and decorator and sometimes has the same issue. My BIL is a builder and OFTEN has this issue.

DH just told me that once, he did some work for a well known restaurant and stated that he'd need the invoice paying immediately on completion and the manager said "Most building companies have a 3 month period for payment....a window."

Er...so what?

Who made THAT the norm??

Tradespeople and freelancers need their bloody money! I wouldn't go into Topshop, take a dress and say "Oh I'll get this paid next week for you...promise!"

It's shit!

Kerala I don't blame you for doing it that way.

I manage a nursery and head office have a very long drawn out process for paying invoices
When I receive an invoice I have to fill in an order form and get it signed by my line manager who visits a couple of times a week. Sometimes the post goes to the school next door and we don't always get it straight away

After its been signed off it goes in the invoice file and is sent to head office at the end of the month
After it gets to head office then it is processed again and allocated to a budget
Then it is paid, normally by cheque which has to be signed by the director
As you can see its a long process and is not just a matter of handing over cash when the job is done( I'm not allowed to do that)

One good thing about a recruitment agency is they would pay the following week and take the long wait.

My father imports jewellery. He has to pay up front, pay tax on entry to the UK, pay the assay office to have the goods hall marked and then retailers want to pay him 90 days after they've received the goods. I wish he'd retire.

The company I work for now uses credit scoring when evaluating companies who bid for tenders. And this is made clear in the tender brief.

And one of the key indicators in the credit score is time taken to pay invoices. A company that takes a long time to pay can be judged as having a higher risk and therefore a lower credit score.

My dad used to be a builder, a sole trader (he'd sub-contract stuff when needed). Eventually his business crashed when he took ill, but he had experience of people not paying for work done. Sadly, one couple took out a bank loan for building work and then promptly bought 2 cars with the money, telling dad they'd pay him at £100 per week. Dad was a soft touch, agreed, and never got most of the money. there were other people who were hard to get money from as well.

I always regret not being a little older at the time. I'm not the soft touch dad is, so anyone owing money would be firmly chased by me. But I was 14 when all the non-payment issues arose, and the business had folded by the time I was 18, when dad might have trusted me to help him.

My maternal grandad was a carpenter and at one point tried to work for himself, but hated asking for the money and chasing late payments so that didn't last long.

Over 30 years I have advised loads of companies here and abroad on contracts which always include payment clauses. It is hard to generalise. Some middlemen buy goods which they resell and want to get paid by their own buyer before they have to pay the original supplier. Some buy goods on sale or return - no obligation to pay unless they sell them (quite rare). Some software suppliers have to pay their subcontractors to pay them for what they will produce for the customer and therefore ask for 40% up front. It is just a matter of negotiation and what is common in your industry. for business to business deals it just depends on the relative power of the parties. That is one reason the European Commission has intervened with the new-ish laws and said - hang on particularly for Government contracts the state really ought to pay businesses in 30 days to set a good example.

I noticed on Friday when a client summarised the 3 of us involved - me (lawyer), accountant and specialist tax adviser I was the only one of the three of us who had invoiced (and done it monthly) and had all our fees already paid. One of the others had only just sent a bil - about 5 months after starting to advise and the accountant had not even put his in yet! I only know because there was a document which summarised who was going to pay these various fees. I was really surprised the others had not bothered to invoice a lot sooner. More fool them I would say.

For any mumsnetters getting house repairs or work done though try to keep as much payment back as possible until you have checked all the work for faults and snagging.

It's difficult. But from a company perspective, I would advocate payment upfront/payment of final instalment prior to delivery. Otherwise, you can end up chasing even the nicest customers for payment. Customers can safeguard themselves by paying on a credit card.

My dh is a Gas Engineer. This bloke was being a PITA through out the job which was a broken boiler. He gleefully told dh that he would not be paying him. So dh took the part out of the boiler which he had just fitted and replaced the broken part back in.

The bloke was then blacklisted at dh's office and theya had an agreement with a few companies over people who have refused to pay. He struggled to get anyone to fix it!

I also have difficulty getting parents to pay subs at brownies. It's the same parents who avoid me week after week until they finally turn up with it. We're lucky one leader's work donates us money.

I am an editor and 21-30 days is pretty standard.