To ask my workplace to finally pay me in a harsh(er) way?

[sleepinthegarden]

Torn about this one so decided to ask what others think. I occasionally write articles for a company and get paid for them per each article written. I don't have a full-time wage with them, and each article has its own invoice. I have now not been paid for almost 2 months since my last article got published. I think this is unreasonable, however, here is the catch: there is no date on the invoice. I tried searching if they are still expected to pay within one month, and couldn't find anything concrete. I have already asked their CEO who hasn't responded at all, and asked another manager who reminded the CEO to pay. I still haven't been paid. I am not sure what to do. I am tempted to write a more harsh message saying that not paying for two months is unreasonable and I'm expecting my payment. What I'm fearing is that I won't get future jobs if I do this- I could really use the money. What would you do?

Do you have a contract/SOW/T&Cs with them? Generally there will be a payment of fees section, if you hav an email with the invoice being sent then even if the date isn't on the invoice itself you have an audit trail of when it was sent so should be able to follow up with them on that basis.

No, no contract. This is a bit hard to explain but I got the offer to write these through people I knew from elsewhere. So the only thing I have with the is the invoice without any date!

How did you submit the invoice? If by email then you could refer to the invoice submitted to you on (date)

Why don’t your invoices include the payment terms? What kind of agreement do you have set up with them?

A lot of businesses pay on 90days from invoice.

The date of submitting the invoice is there on the invoice, and I also have the message with the attached invoice. The problem is that the invoice doesn't state when the money should be paid to me (e.g., let's say by June 15). Can I say that not paying my invoice for 2 months is unreasonable if I don't have it written anywhere how quickly the invoice should be paid?

Kindly, you need to tighten up on your processes. All of my invoices have the issue date, purchase order number, and MY terms of business (payment within 30 days of invoice date). That's the basics, without that you're making your life very difficult.

But of course you should send a reminder and I'd (personally) rather lose a contract than continue to produce work for slow payers.

Issue a new invoice with a date and payment terms.

they can argue your other invoice isn’t valid if it doesn’t have a date

Yes, your payment terms should be spelled out. Net 15, 30, 45, whatever…

Many companies will slow roll payments until the last second.

Dear xxxxxx

It has come to my attention that we haven't formalised the expectations around payment terms.

As per the attached email, my last invoice was submitted to you on xx/xx/xxxx which was xx days ago and payment is currently outstanding.

Please confirm by xx/xx/xxxx that payment will be made by xx/xx/xxxx going forward I will require payment within xx days of invoice submission. Do you have a Statement of Work or Suppler Service Agreement that you utilise with existing supplier to ensure that we have common agreement of ways of working and expectations? If not I can provide a document for your review and agreement.

Kind regards

Xxxxxxx

Add in an amount for late payment & if payment isn't received within 28 days, you will have no option but to recover through the small claims courts.

Thanks, everyone, you confirmed what I was thinking. I agree that the way they are doing it is unacceptable, and probably done that way so that they can pay whenever they can be bothered! I will make sure to let them know I want to change things. What I don't know is whether I can demand that they pay the existing invoice which doesn't have a "pay by" date? I guess I can only appeal to their common sense, rather than referring to any laws?