Reply to: My Agency is playing a 28 day rules on me

[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

[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.

[NotAllThere]

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

[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.

[BoredBloke]

That attitude fails to take account of the individual situation.

If you are in a strong position having to fend off offers of work, then I would agree.

However, this is not the case for me and in honesty, 28 days doesn't bother me - I am managing my finances well enough that it wont make any difference, whatsoever.

My point still stands up: the agent actually suggested a way to minimise the pain, and for that I salute him!

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.

[Grinder]

And you fell for that. Agency tried that on me once and I said I either stay on the agreed terms setup at the start of the original contract or it`s bye bye from me. I stated that had the terms been 28 days at start of first contract I wouldn`t of accepted it.

Some of you guys just fall over and take it up the ......

That attitude fails to take account of the individual situation.

If you are in a strong position having to fend off offers of work, then I would agree.

However, this is not the case for me and in honesty, 28 days doesn't bother me - I am managing my finances well enough that it wont make any difference, whatsoever.

My point still stands up: the agent actually suggested a way to minimise the pain, and for that I salute him!

[NotAllThere]

And you fell for that. Agency tried that on me once and I said I either stay on the agreed terms setup at the start of the original contract or it`s bye bye from me. I stated that had the terms been 28 days at start of first contract I wouldn`t of accepted it.

Some of you guys just fall over and take it up the ......

wouldn't have

[darrenb]

late fees?

As Expat said, your mistake was "taking your problems to the client" instead of "making it his problem"

Hence why you down tools

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

For that matter, has anybody ever succeeded in getting late fees out of an agent?

I am having a big issue getting paid by an agent right now, and trying to figure out if this will add pressure or just complicate things.

[SuperZ]

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.

And you fell for that. Agency tried that on me once and I said I either stay on the agreed terms setup at the start of the original contract or it`s bye bye from me. I stated that had the terms been 28 days at start of first contract I wouldn`t of accepted it.

Some of you guys just fall over and take it up the ......

[Grinder]

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.

[Not So Wise]

For me it was a pretty big agency on a government agency gig.

Payment got held up for weeks, I complained to the manager at the client and he said:

"I'm not interested. We use agents specifically so we don't have to deal with your problems."

Every payment was a week or so later than contractually agreed after that.

Numpty 0 - Pimp 1 - Client 1

As Expat said, your mistake was "taking your problems to the client" instead of "making it his problem"

Hence why you down tools

[pzz76077]

Unless you are working for a micky mouse client, agency is more likely to go bust than client.

10 years ago, when i was a newbie at contracting used to accept 30 day delay in payment from invoiceing but learned the hard way how foolish this is, because..you guessed it...agency went bust leaving me out of pocket in a BIG way (some 60 days worth of work for nothing)

Since then never accepted more than 7 days exposure from invoice date (aka 37 days from first worked date if invoicing monthly) and never will again.

And if they are more than a few days late i tell client not been paid and down tools, funny how fast payment comes then (and neither time that this has happened has client been pissed at me, always at agency)

So unless your signed contract allows them to do this, don't accept it (They are not going to terminate your contract as that would piss off the client).

If you did sign a contract with these terms, then you will have to live with it and learn the lesson for next time to not accept contracts with these types of terms, even if the agent says they normally pay much quicker

Me too, would turn down ANY agent that can not pay me weekly on time (and clearly state this in the contract).

If your agents client goes bust its not your problem (ignoring reality for a moment), you don't have a contract with them, the agency does, you should not need to provide them with insurance like this unless they are prepared to compensate you with a rate rise in return.

I would additionally ask your agent for a copy of the evidence on the clients financial state to be sure that hes not trying it on.

OTOH, if the client does go bust, and the agent becomes insolvent and you are an unsecured creditor all of a sudden.

PZZ

[expat]

For me it was a pretty big agency on a government agency gig.

Payment got held up for weeks, I complained to the manager at the client and he said:

"I'm not interested. We use agents specifically so we don't have to deal with your problems."

Every payment was a week or so later than contractually agreed after that.

Numpty 0 - Pimp 1 - Client 1

Don't complain to the client. Point out to the client that if the issue is not resolved rapidly, you will have to remain offsite while it is resolved. Then it might be his problem that the agency are not reliably supplying the services they contracted for.

But it has to be "the agent causing him a problem", not "you bringing your problems to him".

[tim123]

HI My Agency is saying now that when I complete my timesheet at the end of the month I have to wait a further 28 days for them to pay me. Is this normal? As I would be out of pocket for almost 8 weeks from the start of the month.

How is the start of the month relevent for work done at the end?

tim

[Numpty]

... mickey-mouse agent on a large government gig ...

Menelaus 1 - 0 Pimp

For me it was a pretty big agency on a government agency gig.

Payment got held up for weeks, I complained to the manager at the client and he said:

"I'm not interested. We use agents specifically so we don't have to deal with your problems."

Every payment was a week or so later than contractually agreed after that.

Numpty 0 - Pimp 1 - Client 1