Celebrate!
Two causes for celebration today:
- Yesterday I received the first money I’ve earned through proofreading! Not from the troublesome publishing company; this was cash from a friend’s mother, whose book I proofed and edited last week. Just goes to show – with private clients: you invoice, they pay. With business clients: you invoice, they drag their heels, you chase, they drag their heels a bit more, ad nauseam.
- My two eldest kids are away today until Saturday on a school residential trip. This is not unambiguously a cause for celebration – I shall, of course, miss them terribly, not least because mine is now the responsibility to care for all the various small animals they have adopted between them. However, it will be nice to have a couple of days on our own with the little one, who usually just has to tag along.
It’s certainly the bigger clients that are more troublesome to extract money from. Private clients and one-man-band type businesses are usually really good, often as they rely on good connections as much as us freelancers. Big businesses that are used to extracting 30, 60 or 90 day payment terms and need to have things signed off and passed to payment desks are invariably the worst.
Still, congratulations on getting your first payment – always a nice landmark.
Thanks! It’s odd – I’d have assumed the same as you about the size/speed-of-payment ratio, but the company giving me trouble is a small outfit (publisher, two or three designers, 20-30 books a year). I honestly don’t know if they’re naive, mean or just plain useless…
Probably useless. In the past I’ve just been so much trouble that it worked out easier to pay me. Phoned the guy I’d dealt with on a daily basis, refused to be referred to the accountant (the reason payment was delayed, apparently, was that the original accountant had left. As if that means you can screw up your list of accounts payable and start again.) and just generally made a pest of myself.