*As others have stated, client not paying agency is the agency's problem, not yours. Even if the client never pays them the agency still owes and has to pay you the money. This is why agencies receive the margins they do throughout the contract instead of a one off placement fee, to act as a "glorified factoring service"
*You can do nothing till they are actually late in paying (check your contract payment ToC's)
*Once they are late in paying and if still singing same tune (will not pay till client does) send written notification to agency and client and down tools immediately.
On the notification to client do not do a "he says/she says" with the agency blaming the client, just put quite clearly that the agency has failed to pay for your services already rendered, the reasons the agency has failed to pay are immaterial to everyone.
You have not mentioned the agencies name, but if they are small/unknown start legal proceeding immediately and look for new contract, if they are larger and unlikely to be insolvent (or close to) you can try further negotiations with agency to resolve the matter and if that fails then move to legal (ps others mentioned above the financial status of the client, this is immaterial, if the agency goes under while the client is ok you will still most likely end up out of pocket big time)
And learn the lesson from this, don't leave yourself overexposed to agency's by contract terms that mean you can have a 2 month gap between work done vs payment or by accepting excuses for late payment. That lesson cost me around a 6 figure amount a few years ago and now my rule (contractually) is if it is a monthly payment then they have 7 days to pay or the "service is cut off"
Agencies receive far to much money from my work for me to tolerate them screwing about
*You can do nothing till they are actually late in paying (check your contract payment ToC's)
*Once they are late in paying and if still singing same tune (will not pay till client does) send written notification to agency and client and down tools immediately.
On the notification to client do not do a "he says/she says" with the agency blaming the client, just put quite clearly that the agency has failed to pay for your services already rendered, the reasons the agency has failed to pay are immaterial to everyone.
You have not mentioned the agencies name, but if they are small/unknown start legal proceeding immediately and look for new contract, if they are larger and unlikely to be insolvent (or close to) you can try further negotiations with agency to resolve the matter and if that fails then move to legal (ps others mentioned above the financial status of the client, this is immaterial, if the agency goes under while the client is ok you will still most likely end up out of pocket big time)
And learn the lesson from this, don't leave yourself overexposed to agency's by contract terms that mean you can have a 2 month gap between work done vs payment or by accepting excuses for late payment. That lesson cost me around a 6 figure amount a few years ago and now my rule (contractually) is if it is a monthly payment then they have 7 days to pay or the "service is cut off"
Agencies receive far to much money from my work for me to tolerate them screwing about
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