We state in our terms of trade payment is due on completion of work. This means I send an invoice as soon as DH tells me the job is completed, or if the client doesn’t provide an email address, DH takes the invoice with him.
however unless you both bank with the same bank, and at least in the country where I live, banks do don’t do weekend transfers to each other. Anything transferred to another bank on the weekend is processed Monday morning. most of us understand this and generally clients will screen shot a copy of their payment transfer as proof.
all good.
having said that, tradespeople are not credit providers. You can’t walk out of a supermarket without paying for items, so neither should a tradesperson be subsidising building work for a client. We are currently doing bits for a real estate agent who we know is on the brink of being broke, yet is spending a massive sum on a new kitchen. I totally understand why kitchen installers have clients pay up front for the bulk of the work.
another little trick we have experienced is someone’s uncle’s bf’s father (you get the drift, a total random) tells them not to pay until he turns up to inspect the work. These types of people are rarely knowledgeable as to current day building rules, never turn up when the tradesperson is there, and frankly is a misleading pain in the arse. We have successfully taken one of these guys to court and won, after he refused our representative access to the job and then ripped it apart after he received the court notice.
generally speaking our clients have been awesome to deal with, and if people don’t like our terms of trade (we deal with relatively big sums of money) then they can get someone else too, but it cripples the cash flow if you get a couple of Folk who delay in paying…
in the meanwhile, please encourage your children to get into the building industry, the young ones are not coming through and guys like DH are going to retire without passing on their knowledge and skill.