When everyone thinks about freelancing, the first thing comes to our mind is the payment. The freelancers especially the newcomers tend to find the cash flow management difficult. As a freelancer, you would have to face the delayed payments as a common issue. If you are not paid on time, you would find it de-motivating you and often you would feel frustrated about it. This would ultimately lead to the destruction of the business relationship with your client. So, how to get paid on time being a freelancer? See here…

Early Bills will Work:

When you need to send invoices to your client, you should not wait until the month end. I would advise you to send the bills as and when you have completed the work. This would make the amounts lower and simpler for the clients to pay and they wouldn’t feel like paying you more or extra. Remember that, in order to maintain a good business relationship, it’s important to think from client’s perspective as they would also monthly commitments and they might not be able to pay a bulk amount to a single person at the end of the month. So, get the amounts in smaller parts by sending invoices for each and every completed step thereby making the process easier for the clients.

Set Up Clear Payment Deadlines:

Not only the project delivery date is important in freelancing but also the payment deadline which is equally important. Whenever you start a new project make sure you are setting up a clear payment deadline and get the approval from your client side. If you are not specifying the payment deadline during the start of the contract, the clients would tend to pay it late only. Therefore, make sure you are indicating the payment deadline clearly on the invoices and keep your client informed about the same. This will prevent your clients from excusing about the delayed payments as they could not claim that they didn’t know about the deadline.

Send Reminders Consistently:

What would you do if your client didn’t pay even after one month of billing? Don’t leave it as such thinking about your future collaboration. While project completion is important for your client, payment is important for you. So, show him/her that you are very serious about getting paid and send a gentle reminder about the payment. If it’s still not paid, start sending consistent reminders every seven days. Now, you must remember to send some less-friendly reminders as it’s not your duty to send reminders to get paid for the completed task.

Offer Discounts for On Time Payments:

When some clients are ready to pay you a bonus for the on-time work completion and for great quality works, you must be ready to offer them small discounts for on-time payments. This would work with some of the clients especially if they are money-minded. It’s quite natural that the clients are setting up a budget for the project completion and your discount would make them feel that they are able to save by paying on time. While doing so, you need not offer more than 2% of the total value of the project as it should not affect your income. Keep it 2% or less.

Charge them Interest for Delayed Payments:

This might seem unfair! But, remember that financial deterrents could work with few clients. Although you might not like this, this is not illegal to collect interest. Rather, it would increase the importance of your invoices among the clients thereby making them pay on time. Forget not to mention about the interest on your invoices. The general interest rates can be from 1 to 5%.