Freelance work with no contract

[bitofawait]

I have been working as a freelancer for a big company and don't have a contract. I signed all their legal stuff, but my pay rate and hours was dealt with by the other more experienced freelancer that job me the "gig". They asked for a set day rate that I suggested and then the company have been paying this as per my request. Never asked me about proving the hours or time logs, but I have been invoicing. To start with it was very busy, then some not so busy weeks. So really it was all working out fine, balancing out. Then recently it was really quiet. I kept chasing work but nothing, but as no one said to stop I kept invoicing. The issue is if I take another job then I'm not available for them. So it's a tricky thing.

Then other freelancer said I should not invoice if I'm not doing anything. However I expect they were doing exactly that anyway as working on the same stuff as me. So I stopped invoicing, but now it's been a month without any invoicing and I need to earn and pay my childcare. The company contacted me saying I'm to be doing this going forward, inthough hurrah we are back on, but again no actual work has materialised. I need to start earning again. I asked the freelancer that introduced me what they thought as to whether I could start invoicing again and it seems they have now left.

For info the person I invoice is just someone in accounts and they have no idea what I'm doing or not doing. However I assume it's coming out of someone's budget. I don't want to be invoicing and think I'm earning and then not be paid it.

I just do not have anyone I report into because it's all a bit weird about the management of freelancers. It's a bit of a mess. The work was coming from various different people in different country offices but all very senior people, all part of this big company. Should I just give up with this company? I've tried chasing, but the only people who reply aren't high enough up the chain to agree to paying me to be retained. I'm so stressed I'm not earning.

You either need to find other work or agree a retainer with this company. A retainer would set a minimum number of hours per month. You would be able to invoice for those hours regardless of whether you had actually done any work for them that month. If you did more than the hours in the retainer you would be able to invoice for the additional hours as well as the retainer.

@prh47bridge it's how I word this to them about a retainer. The person that has said it's back on is someone I've not come across previously and they are extremely junior. I expect they won't even know what I'm talking about or have considered how someone gets paid that isn't employed ( from my google exploration of them.) It's a mess and annoying. Lesson learned.

When I worked freelance I was hired for X days and invoiced accordingly. Unless they hired me for a certain number of weeks (unusual to do that), I only worked days when needed. If there was no work, I wasn't hired and could work for someone else.
So my days were set out in advance, or if it was by the job I'd say how much I wanted for it. There was never a time just invoicing without actually doing any work.