[Patr100]

Ok - I just invoiced for my first paid for website. Not a huge amount but am starting out. Acknowledged and expected payment - Had to remind them as they "forgot". Now apparently it's in the post. I'll be more careful next time.

Now two questions:
How do you guys usually get paid? By Cheque? Paypal? Other online billing?

How do you help the process of prompt payment without getting the debt collectors in?

Even if you put "payment to be received " say 14 days from date of invoice - what if they ignore or "forget" ?
Could threaten to pull a site offline via my reseler hosting account but that might not always be possible. And it still might not help me getting paid,

Your thoughts, ladies and gentilemen.

[proc355]

meet my accountant

[Hunch]

Originally Posted by Patr100

How do you guys usually get paid? By Cheque? Paypal? Other online billing?

Bank transfer. It's more convenient, doesn't require a trip to the bank to pay it in, and big companies sometimes take longer to raise a cheque (it usually needs authorisation and a signatory) than to do a BACS payment.

Even if you put "payment to be received " say 14 days from date of invoice - what if they ignore or "forget" ?

Get used to it. Most companies expect 30 day terms, big corporates might take up to 90. Generally I find that personally calling someone in their accounts department and having an honest chat does the trick. If you say "I'm a freelancer, I depend on this money to live" they'll often push it through faster. Otherwise your invoice will just get chucked on the pile with the others. I mainly work for large firms though. If small companies don't pay you, they're probably just fucking lazy.

[Shiro]

I've thought about some ideas on this one myself, though I've never had to deal with it yet.

I'm curious what the pros out there think about these ideas:

1) Creating the site entirely on your own servers, with an agreement that the site will be moved to their server upon payment (or 75% payment or something like that)
2) Adding a script that causes the site to become inaccessible after a certain date, unless turned off by the developer. A back door could be created that the company never has to know about, that makes the site viewable and self-deletes the script.

What do you guys think of this? The first one seems reasonable to me, the second one seems a little sneaky though. Maybe if you told the company about it first, although it may be a bit of a hard subject to breach.

[puzzle]

haku, your second idea seems a little heavy handed.

I saw on this forum a while ago a pretty good technique that im probably going to employ. You set up the hosting with your desired password, then when you recieve payment hand it over to the client who can then change the password.

This way its clear to the client that you have control untill you have been payed. Of course this does not guarantee that you will be payed. Draw up a contact is your best bet.

[Herr Kurm]

Break a few legs. proc-s accountant is pretty good too, Ive heard!

[Clever Mind]

Personally We keep sites on our servers until paid. One that gets our name out there because all domains are forwarded to us with a page saying "site will be up soon". And when we receive payment, we run a script that takes the site off ours and transfers it to the clients. Haven't had a problem yet.
But I Like the Bat idea too...