My Agency is playing a 28 day rules on me

[SuperZ]

wouldn't have

Yer so an*l


Grinder, fair enough. I jsut don`t like agencies changing terms to suit themselves once you`re in a rolling contract at a co.

[NotAllThere]

Yep. But only on that one. It's so ******* sloppy.

[Grinder]

You won't be in a good financial position if the agent goes belly up taking 60 days of pay with it. The issue is not how good or bad somebody is regarding their personal finances its why should the little guy be made to wait for the money and hold all the risk. If the agent is doing this then ask for a rate rise. One of the tasks agencies often do is to factor invoices, if they are not doing this then get somebody to do it for you and pass the cost onto the agency. If they have suddenly implemented this alarm bells should be going off - I wouldn't want them holding onto up to 8 weeks of my money if they are having moeny problems. If contractors are finding the going tough, so will agents.

I can see there is risk of the agency going bust... acknowledged.

The commercial reality of my contract (which rescued me from 5 months of bench time) is that I am happy with the rate and am prepared to shoulder the risk while I am building relationships with client and even the agency.

[Not So Wise]

Big question for you and Menelaus: did you charge late fees as allowed by law?

No, as not worth the extra hassle it would cause for so little return.

Only time would charge late fee's is if i was forced to take them to court

For my new contract, the agency pays 28 days after invoice.

I was talking to the guy today and he just suggested I invoice weekly - that way I'm paid weekly from 5 weeks in, rather than monthly from 8 weeks in.

I thought it was an excellent of him to suggest this.

28 days after invoice on a weekly invoice is not that bad as it only gives you about 35 day's (25 working) exposure, pretty much same as invoicing monthly with 7 days to pay on invoice. What I class as "acceptable risk"

Pretty common too, so agent is not doing you a "big favour"

But something I note, you say "agent suggested", to which I imply it does not actually say in contract? Or even worse says something totally different?

As many people have discovered in last year, those unfavourable payment terms in contracts that have never been enforced (aka agency always played same day but contract gave them 30 days) can suddenly get applied

Grinder, fair enough. I jsut don`t like agencies changing terms to suit themselves once you`re in a rolling contract at a co.

Never understood people who allow agencies to do this, contract renewal is the first time contractor is negotiating from a position of real strength, client liked you enough to make the renewal offer, time to squeeze the agency