by Leo Wiles
09 July 2014
I worked as a copywriter for a client who wanted a full-timer, but it wasn’t my area so we agreed on a trial period of a week or two to see how things went. I worked hard but it soon became clear it wasn’t going to work out. They were lovely people but very confused about what they wanted and unaware of how to brief a writer.
We agreed that I’d not continue and they invited me to invoice them for the hours worked, which I did. I never heard back so I sent a follow up and they replied they’d deal with it the following week. I asked for a date of payment and there’s been silence ever since. It’s not a huge sum and I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt until the end of the month, but I fear I’ve been burned. Thoughts? P
How very annoying. Although, not unusual. Both Rach and I talked about your issue and agreed that there have been times for both of us when it has taken months to be paid. And I have heard of instances of freelancers who, sick of chasing accounts and sending outstanding reminders, simply front up at the company’s lobby and announce they will sit there at reception until they are paid – announcing to all visitors their intentions. Drastic measures, (and not one I would recommend), but for some companies the risk of looking bad may well lead them to cough up, finally.
I would however stay on their back – they invited you to invoice and you deserve that money. If it gets too hard, you can ask your MEAA rep for legal advice or pay a lawyer to write the company a letter. In future, and for anyone who’s ever worried about finding themselves in this situation, these are my top tips for working as a freelancer but never being out of pocket – and being paid what you’re worth. (Something we’re tackling in this year’s Show Me The Money 2014 Survey.)
1. Know who you’re doing business with – are they new, solvent, trustworthy?
2. Track your invoices. I use an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns: commissioned (when and by who), delivered (to whom and when), chased, received.
3. File your invoice with the copy, content and or photographs thus circumnavigating the denial that it hasn’t been received.
4. Address it to the person who commissioned you along with details of the work that was agreed. When you do this it acts as a mini contract and removes the wiggle room. Or, to be fair, it can act as a mental prompt to a flat-out editor who can’t recall what they had for breakfast – let alone your piece two issues ago.
5. Name the person who commissioned you in the body of the invoice along with the services rendered (story, pictures etc), as agreed with the title of the magazine/company, the title of the of the commissioning editor, plus the details of the issue or date the story was to appear, and the date you filed.
6. Make your Terms of Trading clear. At the bottom of my invoice I always include the following words: ‘Payment within 7days – kindly advise, if for any reason, these terms cannot be met’.
7. Supply your BSB and account details requesting to be paid electronically to speed things up (and remove the need to wait four days for the cheque to clear!).
8. Call and non-emotionally check to see when you can expect to be paid – ONLY when a) the article has gone to print, as often there will be an inbuilt payment on publication or b) at least two weeks if not a month has gone by. Any earlier, and you’re going to come off desperate and irritate a potential future client.
9. Resend a month after the due date via email, snail mail and with a friendly voice mail ‘just letting you know’. Want to make sure it goes through to an office landline voicemail? Call outside of business hours, preferably in the morning at 7am (rather than 9pm when an editor may still be marking up pages).
10. Charge half up front for big jobs in the thousands so that even if you are left high and dry, you’ll have something to show for it.
11. CC the accounts department for regular late paying editors when you file your invoice and then call the accountant and not the editor . Letting the editor save face can mean a much more fruitful long-term relationship where they don’t dread your calls.
12. Negotiate a kill fee if the editor says they have decided not to proceed and you have already delivered the agreed work.
13. Pick up the phone to your Australian Journalists Association (MEAA) representative and let them go in to bat for you.
14. Walk away – even after you have the cheque in your hot little hand it might be worth adding up the hours it took to chase it and decide not to work with that particular outlet / commissioning Ed. again.
Have you experienced late payment and or non-payment and come up with a way to overcome it? We’d love to share your tips.
Helpful post. I agree with all the above. To the copywriter concerned, I would keep chasing.
This is linked to money issues and is my big bug bear at the moment.. so thought I’d share with the Rachel List community. I was commissioned to write a book and have done everything I’ve been asked, filed on time etc, but the client held up the process. So instead of publishing this month we are publishing at the end of the year. I’ve been paid for everything — great — but because of the huge delay, I am now doing all of this work on the project way after I was scheduled to do so, it’s taken much longer because of the delay and as I’ve already been paid, every hour spent is at my expense. It’s been a nightmare and for any of you out there doing this sort of long form work, make sure you put in caveats in the contract for:
— length of time you will undertake the work
— additional fees for material that comes after that the copy file date
— additional fees for second redrafts and third redrafts
— and a final fee on publication (so if you do run over time you will still get paid something at the end of it).
For me it’s been a big learning curve on clarifying my terms of work and I will never let this happen again!
Claire.
Very good advice Claire, thanks for sharing. I’ve been in a similar situation with a copywriting job that blew out to months (rather than the weeks agreed on) and they paid me upfront (which was great) but it meant I was kind of chained to them and couldn’t do any other work until it was over. It was a pain and I do think spelling out things like length of time and additional fees over the agreed deadline date etc is essential.
Great post Leo. I disagree slightly about sending the invoice with the copy as I think – only my opinion mind – that it can get lost amongst everything else. I send my invoices in a separate email with just a ‘here is your invoice for the such and such piece. Even if the editor is a friend or long standing acquaintance I leave out the social chit-chat beyond ‘hope you’re having a good week etc’ so it’s very clear this is an invoice, it’s business. I may well follow it up with another email that’s more social but I think it’s worthwhile keeping it very separate.
I can highly recommend the MEAA. They’ve helped me get money from clients twice. The first time was a marketing agency which commissioned me to write a bylined article and later claimed that the space had been cut from two pages to one and they could only pay me half what we’d agreed. I had to wait 60 days but they paid on the very day that the MEAA’s Letter of Demand on my behalf hit their desk.
The other time, the publisher went broke (serial phoenix publisher – the tales I could tell) owing nearly $500,000 to writers, printers, graphic artists etc. The MEAA lawyer was like a pit bull, she just wouldn’t let it go; probably because I’d spent three months on this project which was big enough that I didn’t have much time for much else and I was in pretty dire straits due to the non-payment. While she only managed to extract half of what I was owed, I know other people who were owed smaller amounts didn’t get anything.
As the letter writer is unlikely to work for this company again, I would think he/she should take the nuclear option and just go to the MEAA straight away.
Love Leo’s advice on this one but Darren, I kind of agree with you about the invoice thing. I very rarely attach the invoice along with the work – but my reasoning is because I like to wait until the editor has read the piece, doesn’t need changes and so on. It probably wouldn’t make a difference to the invoice if they did but I’m just in the habit now of keeping it separate to the copy (and also, I like to have the word ‘invoice’ in the subject line of the email so it’s very clear what it is / less chance of getting lost). If there’s no response to the piece I usually assume no news is good news and send the invoice in a separate email a few days later.
A lot of this malarkey has changed with Bauer (who I do most of my work for) because of their EPOS system – you don’t generally invoice the editor at all anymore, just a separate accounts dept. Much simpler, as long as you get an editor who sends you the EPOS when they commission you!
Me again. Just wanted to point out that if you’re a member of the MEAA – and every freelancer should be – that one of its membership officers will do a Letter of Demand for you and then refer the matter to a solicitor it uses. All you need to do is tell them who owes you money, how much etc, I think from memory you may have to sign something, and they do the rest. If it goes to court, the MEAA will do all the paperwork for you and you just need to sign it and turn up to lodge the documents. It really is a great service for freelancers.
That is a great service.
One tip I learnt is not to have “pay within # days” on your invoice but write the actual due date eg “Payment must be received by 10 July 2014”. That way there’s a clear day by which the invoice is considered ‘late’ and no excuses for lag times for cheques in the mail etc.
The other is to quote the organisation’s ABN on the invoice so you have legal recourse should you need it. Some businesses have trading names that are different to their legal business name and may try to wriggle out of payment because you’ve used the trading name.
Wow guys,
Thank you so much for sharing with the RL community.
Great reminder Darren re joining the MEAA before a crisis strikes, I was really pleased to read how well they went in to bat for you – every freelancer should have their own pitball.
Adeline I am taking your date and ABN tip on board immediately!
Claire all I can say is contracts, contracts, contracts.
When commissioned to do big jobs I will email them with a breakdown of what we have agreed.
I know Rach and I differ on sending out rate sheets but mine includes how many edits they can reasonably expect on any piece of work to try and kill project creep dead in its tracks as it’s a real killer for freelancers.
Thanks for sharing, L
Good tip Adeline.
Leo and Rachel, would it be too much to ask to get an idea of what your rate sheet looks like? Is there a template you’ve used?
If it is too much to ask… don’t worry 🙂
It’s been great to hear about other writers’ strategies.
Dear Claire,
My rate sheet is a not only a living document it’s also one that I tailor make for each client.
Not to fudge figures but to cut out the bits and pieces that conflict with the area they are hiring me in as I straddle PR, writing, social media and of course video and audio content.
Sadly there isn’t a template but I am so glad you asked as it’s one of the things that Rach and I have on the agenda for Rachel’s List members to deal with pitches, invoices, rates etc. – so watch this space!
If you’d like to know more feel free to email both of us or either of us.