Help please!

[elliec1]

Hi Everyone! Just wanted some guidance on payment terms. I've heard some awful stories about waiting ages to be paid, I'm really worried about managing my cash flow! Anyone got any experience of this?

[Louisa@AardvarkAccounting]

If you don't have a contract that you've already signed, you can set the payment terms.

Most contractors would usually go for 7 days or 30 days as standard. On the odd occasion this could be 60 days but this might not work in terms of managing your cash flow!

However, if you've signed a contract, this should have detailed the payment terms and if anyone starts to pay late, I'd give them a gentle chaser before you start getting tough (charging them interest for late payment or taking them to court).

[northernladuk]

Are you Stefprivate that posted the same question in General?

Your payment terms are dictated by the agency and the contract you sign. It's pretty rare you can change them. They will vary as there is no standard. could be anything from 7 days after invoice to 30 days. Also the invoicing periods will be different as well.

If you go direct you could quite possibly looking at 30-90 days and wouldn't be unusual to be late.

Normally most people will go contracting after redundancy or have some money behind them (we call it a warchest). Contracting can be ad-hoc. You could get canned in reception in day one or not get another gig after the first one so having this warchest is absolutely key to avoid the bad periods.

We get the odd story about agents being late with payments but even in those few cases it's not a long time and it always get's resolved. We aren't talking about the last payment which can be the worst. I assume you are talking about your first few months until you get something behind you.

[cojak]

Yes, they are so this thread is locked.