Published But Not-Paid Part II - How To Extract Payment From Sticky Fingered Editors!

By Sue Kendrick

Having a proper strategy in place to eliminate payment confusionwill go a long way in avoiding unnecessary problems caused bymisunderstandings, (see the part one of this article), but therewill be occasions when the agreed payment period has passed andyour precious cheque has not arrived!

The following is a list of steps you need to follow to stand thebest chance of collecting payment.

1. Send out your invoice either when the contract is completedor at the month end. (Part I of this article explains what anInvoice is).

2. At the end of each month send out a Statement. A Statement ismuch the same as an invoice except it lists all the separate,unpaid invoices that you may have sent out to the same client orpublication. Statements, as do invoices come in all shapes andsizes but all contain the same things, a number, the date, whatis owed and what is over due, plus your contact details ofcourse and those of the publication.

3. Allow a week for the Statement to provoke a reaction. If nocheque arrives, telephone.

4. Ask to speak to whoever deals with the accounts. It may bethe editor, in which case you will already know his or her name.If it is someone in the accounts department make sure that youget their name and write it down.

5. Don't get angry! You may be on the breadline and have workednight and day to meet the deadline but losing your temper rarelyachieves anything. Keep calm and ask if they have received yourinvoice and if so when can you expect payment.

6. Usually this is all you need to do. Wait the appointed timeand the money will likely turn up as promised. Occasionallyhowever you will have to work a bit harder.

7. Phone again and say that the cheque hasn't yet arrived andask if there is a problem. You must note down what they say asit could be important if things turn nasty. If there is aproblem then of course you will have to sort it out, if not thenthere is no reason why you shouldn't be paid so again try andpin them down as to when the cheque will be forthcoming. If thesum is large you may like to consider offering to fetch it.(Always assuming of course this isn't the other side of theplanet!). A disarming, "I'll be in your area tomorrow, could Icall in?" is a very face saving phrase that keeps every onesdignity in tact!

8. If this isn't practical or you are told it isn't possible youwill have to run with it a little longer. Wait again for thecheque to turn up when it was promised, if it doesn't telephoneagain. It does by this stage become annoying but you stillmustn't loose your temper, it really doesn't achieve anything.Kick the chair if you must, but stay calm with accounts andyou'll have a better chance of winning the day.

9. Still no cheque? O.K. now's the time to start getting heavy.Send a letter explaining that if payment is not received within7 days you will be taking steps to recover the fee through thesmall claims court. Point out that if this becomes necessaryinterest will be charged on the debt for the whole period itremains over due.

10. Assuming this has fallen on deaf ears you are now faced withhaving to follow through with your threat of the small claimscourt. If things reach this pitch there is no need to bealarmed. You don't need a solicitor and all the forms can beobtained from most stationeries or from the web. You will haveto shell out a small fee to set the process in motion but thisis added to the total debt and will be recovered along with theoriginal outstanding amount.

Once your client receives this he is faced with two choices.Either he can pay up, (by far the most likely), or he cancontest it. If the later choice is made then you will both haveto go to an arbitration court where a decision will be made infavour of one or the other with the loser being responsible forall costs.

Again it is well to keep things in perspective. I have used thesmall claims court twice in over twenty years of freelancing.Once against a client who refused to pay for work hecommissioned as his client went into liquidation, (he paid up assoon as the court summons arrived so it never went toarbitration).

The second was against the publisher of a magazine franchise whoowned me a considerably amount of cash in unpaid advertising. Inthis case she contested the claim. However, I was convinced Iwas in the right and stuck to my guns fully prepared to fight itout at arbitration. Two days before the case was due to be hearda fax came from her solicitors saying that a cheque in fullsettlement would be in the post that day.

This link will take you to the Small Claims Advisory servicewhich will explain the Small Claims Court procedure in detail.http://www.small-claims.co.uk/

What though about the web? Clients are not necessarily in thesame country, so how do you collect your money and recover baddebts?

There is no easy answer to this as different countries aresubject to different laws and it can often be difficult to findout just where the hand that actually grasps the cheque bookactually is! However, there are some pointers that will helpkeep potential trouble to a minimum.

Contracts obtained through the job bidding sites often havetheir own payment systems in place. Guru.com for exampleoperates the SafePay system this works by Guru collecting thepayment from the employer, deducting their expenses and thenpassing on the proceeds to the contractor. It generates invoicesand receipts all of which can be seen through the contractor'spersonal control panel. Elance has a similar system in placewhich is explained in detail in its very comprehensive usermanual, available for download from the site.

Another popular method utilised by people doing business on theweb is the Escrow system. There are fees involved, mainly basedon a percentage of the transaction, but it does more or lesseliminate the bad debt problem.

Doing a little research about the publication that you proposeworking for can also pay dividends. This can range from simplyvisiting your favourite search engine and typing in the name todoing full blown credit checks. You may think that a basicsearch engine query is not going to produce much of a result butyou would be surprised at what gets posted on the web thesedays.

As an example, a few months ago I was approached by a selfpublishing company who wanted to take a considerable amount ofadvertising space on Writelink. Having had no dealings with thiscompany before I ran a quick search on Google and immediatelyfound some rather alarming postings. Needless to say we didn'tdo business and very glad I am too since the owner subsequentlydid a moonlight flit, leaving dozens of very unhappy clients andcreditors behind.

Talking of writers websites, you will find that some of theseinclude warning listings of publications to be avoided. Writelinincludes this facility, but you will also find a verycomprehensive listing on Preditors and Editors.

Finally, do keep everything in perspective. You will almostcertainly get your fingers burnt on at least one occasion, butoperate your writing business efficiently and professionally andpayment problems should be kept to a minimum.

Article Source: www.ArticlesBase.com

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