Ask HN: As a freelancer, how do you ensure clients pay? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: As a freelancer, how do you ensure clients pay?

#41

Post by j45 » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 2:44 PM UTC

hoodoof wrote: post #22

j45 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great idea.

We NEVER get paid late using this approach, in 8 years of doing business. Admittedly we are not doing software development but the principle works as long as you can get a warranty defined in your terms that does not commit you to doing free feature work rather than bug fixes. Shoud be do-able.

I typically say when a feature is released to testing/customer acceptance, I'm done the spirit of what I was approved to work on, and the work is both billable in full at that point, and the warranty clock of 30 days starts.

Re: Ask HN: As a freelancer, how do you ensure clients pay?

#42

Post by aptwebapps » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

IsaacL wrote: post #33

patio11 wrote: post #20

Be picky about clients. Payment risk is not equally distributed across all clients, all work, or all contracts. Exercising a bit of professional discretion upfront will save you grief later.

This. The ebook career.fork() that came out recently had more on this. Basically, you can learn to spot "clients from hell". There are certain traits that are the equivalent of pointy horns and a whiff of brimstone: - excessive cheapness in initial negotiations - "but we can just find a guy on odesk for $5/hour" (reply: OK, you do that, and come find me when it falls apart). - no effort to understand technical issues…

"- "but we can just find a guy on odesk for $5/hour" (reply: OK, you do that, and come find me when it falls apart)."

Yes, except skip the 'find me when ...' part.

Re: Ask HN: As a freelancer, how do you ensure clients pay?

#43

Post by karmajunkie » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 4:26 PM UTC

aptwebapps wrote: post #42

IsaacL wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The ebook career.fork() that came out recently had more on this. Basically, you can learn to spot "clients from hell". There are certain traits that are the equivalent of pointy horns and a whiff of brimstone: - excessive cheapness in initial negotiations - "but we can just find a guy on odesk for $5/hour" (reply: OK, you do that, and come find me when it falls apart). - no effort to understand technical issues…

"- "but we can just find a guy on odesk for $5/hour" (reply: OK, you do that, and come find me when it falls apart)." Yes, except skip the 'find me when ...' part.

My response to that kind of comment is "You can pay me now, or pay me later to fix it. Its cheaper now, but you decide."

Re: Ask HN: As a freelancer, how do you ensure clients pay?

#44

Post by centdev » Fri, Nov 23, 2012, 2:43 AM UTC

Our policy is 50% upfront before any concept meetings even begin and 50% upon completion before we deliver and launch their site. We never do Net terms anymore in the 15 years building web and mobile apps. We sometimes get the "accounting only pays net 15 or 30". Our answer to that is to invoice the balance and schedule delivery when the check arrives. If you are upfront with your terms, they will typically follow your standard. In our experience we had 1-2 clients in the beginning that did net 30 which turned into 60. We were small and cash flow was tight so it meant we needed to float expenses. No more.