Freelance quandary over pay would I be unreasonable to...

[Loopylala7]

Send a reminder about being paid?

This is my first ever freelance job (for quite a big company). I sent my invoice last month, technically they have 3 days left out of the 30 to pay me, but have not seen a penny yet (and tbh really need the money).

The person I'm dealing with said that the invoice had gone to the finance department and they thought I was going to be paid last week (told me this the week before I was to expect it). Anyway, I realise they still have 3 days, but don't want to annoy them with pestering and put them off employing me ever again, but is there a way of reminding nicely? Or is that completely unprofessional considering they are still within the 30 days? Help!

I don't think you can remind them when they are still within your payment terms. I don't deal with invoicing fees or managing my payments now, and don't know when specific amounts are due, but I think my business manager's routine is to send a reminder a week after due date telling them payment is now overdue.

I'm a freelancer and I don't think you can really remind them until it's overdue

You can't pester within the agreed time limits. Sorry.

Agree with the others!!

Thanks lovely mumsnetters, I guess I'm going to have to sit on my hands then and hope it's just a bit delayed

I pay our freelancers bang on the due date. They are usually pleasantly surprised at how prompt we are.

Wish all our clients were so helpful with payments!

If the terms are 30 days then you have to wait I'm afraid. I would wait a week after the 30 days are up until I contacted them.

Many of my clients don't pay for 6 weeks, a few it is 3 months. These are blue chip companies! As always it is the little people who have to wait for the crumbs from the multinationals table... Bitter, moi?

Seriously though, it's the freelance world, you just have to wait.

Don't pester, even large companies usually only pay the day the invoice is due. I've just had to threaten small claims on a company that was 60 days overdue! (He paid.)

In my experience, companies tend to pay in either the payment run after they receive the invoice, or bang on 30 days. The fact that you 'haven't seen a penny' yet means nothing - they are hardly likely to pay you in instalments if your work was all covered on the one invoice. I agree with others - you can't chase them until the payment is actually late.

you could contact the finance department and check where in their payment cycle your invoice is. IME with bigger firms the person commissioning/signing off the work has very little idea how things work in the finance dept, and similarly finance don't always get the correct paperwork from the commissioning person, so can't make the payment.

Cultivate a named person in finance is my advice, they are usually pretty helpful.

Dh is freelance and has this problem pretty much every month with every company. Although you don't technically have a 'problem' yet as they aren't even overdue. DH still hasn't been paid for July! He was supposed to be paid for July by the end of August and still nothing. 24 days late. This is our only income and he emails/ calls the dept in charge every other day. We try to arrange our finances knowing that companies take ages to pay as it seems par for the course. For you, I wouldn't hassle anybody for payment when the deadline hasn't passed.

I'm in finance, and completely agree about cultivating a named person in finance. Plenty of (big) companies have pretty rubbish systems for invoice approval, so it's worth getting friendly with the person who can tell you whether the invoice has been processed and which payment run it will be on.

I'm not a freelancer but work for a small company which does jobs for pretty big clients so vaguely similar in the differences in scale.

One thing the directors did from the start was have floating cash in the bank to cover late payment. It becomes expensive having cashflow problems, and uses up a lot of time to. So if you can afford it, try and build up a pot of cash so it's not so critical that you get paid bang on time. I know you've just started up and that will be hard to do, but long term it will be less stressful.

As others have said, make sure you have followed the payment rules. If they have purchase orders and the like then you must put the information on. Otherwise the finance department will most likely just ignore it.

Of course you can call! Just ask if they have it and if they know the payment date. Also if you are going to carry on working for them, find out their processes so you know for next month.

I'm a freelance and my terms are 7 days. I never get paid in 7 days, but by putting that on the invoice I can chase if I need to get some money in and it serves to remind people that I'm not there to subsidise their cash flow. Many large companies have a 90 day policy regardless of what your own terms are and you can chase till you're blue in the face but it won't get you anywhere.