Early/Advance Payment

[northernladuk]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I invoice for the work for the entire month, I am paid prior to actually completing a months worth of work (by about a week).

My point of IR35 is not the billing of a client via invoice, dont be silly, but the fact that I receive payment before on or on the month's end, just as a permie would on PAYE. There is little incentive for the client to pay up early so it just seems strange so I thought I would gauge other peoples thoughts on this.

I am not knocking it though, it is a great client and I appreciate the money upfront.

The point of when you invoice has been topic of much discussion and as ever we got conflicting advice. In theory you can bill ever single day if you want to. You are a business and have a right to do so, even if it is monthly. Someone did chirp up and mention that HMRC still equate monthly billing to permies though which I find utterly ridiculous. A month is a set length of time. The fact it coincides with permie PAYE has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you bill monthly in my mind. It is a set date that is useful to clients, permies and contractors alike. Just becuase we use end of month as a cut of point in no way makes us look permies... but someone mentioned HMRC think it does. Same with dividends. Just cause you pay yourself monthly divis shouldn't have anything to do with you being permie etc etc. The fact client asks you to invoice monthly isnt client control either. it is just fitting in to their systems as well in my mind.

Just a point. Permies do not get paid just at end of month. They are more often a month in arrears so they get paid 30 days AFTER their month. You getting yours a week after billing makes you totally different to them

[NotAllThere]

I have on occasion invoiced and been paid before the work was done. Nothing to do with IR35. If the client (agency) has a dodgy credit rating then it makes sense to get paid in advance.

The best I had as an employee was payment two weeks in advance, two weeks in arrears - i.e. middle of the month.