Late Payments and How to Handle Them for Freelancers
What you'll learn
- Understand how to effectively approach one of the single biggest headaches for freelancers: late payments.
- How to put yourself in a position to be less affected by late payments, so you don't have to deal with them from a place of desperation.
- In-depth analysis of how to communicate with clients about overdue invoices, with an emphasis on diplomacy and results.
- Extensive downloadable materials include real emails that solved freelance late pay issues, which can be used as templates.
- Real-world examples of how NOT to deal with late pay. Freelancers who got it wrong, fell out with clients, and didn't get hired again.
- How to prepare your invoices to combat late payments, including a downloadable invoice template.
- Next steps to retrieve funds via legal means and analysis of client insolvency.
Requirements
- No prior experience needed. This course is open to all.
Description
This short course covers late payments and how to handle them.
Late pay is one of the biggest headaches for freelancers, and lots of us will tell you it's one of the worst things about our job – if not the worst! How and when our clients pay us can vary wildly; some are absolutely brilliant and settle their bills in the blink of an eye, while others process invoices at a frustratingly glacial rate.
This course explains how best to deal with the ones who are dragging their heels with payments. It examines the communication and etiquette around chasing people up for overdue bills, and how we freelancers can do so in polite and diplomatic ways, designed to keep us on good terms with our clients, but also get results.
It also looks at what to avoid, and includes real-world examples of how NOT to chase clients about late pay.
For clients who completely ignore us or just refuse to cough up, there is advice about how and where to start legal proceedings (this is general guidance, not official legal advice), plus a brief look at clients who enter insolvency and how freelancers can best approach it.
The final section is all about the invoice itself: how we can prepare and tailor it to put us on a stronger footing if and when late payments become an issue.
The downloadable materials include an array of template emails that worked in the real world, and got clients to pay up. There's also a downloadable invoice template, and you can copy, tweak, and adapt all of the above to your own, personal circumstances.
As with all the Bite-Size Freelance courses, this one is designed to be as universal as possible, and the emphasis is on easy, practical methods that you can implement immediately, regardless of who you are, where you are, or what you do.
Both aspiring and existing freelancers can benefit from the techniques covered in this course – and it's short enough to do on your lunch break.
Who this course is for:
- Existing freelancers of all types and levels who are either struggling with late payments or want to better prepare themselves to handle them.
- Aspiring freelancers who want to start their career on the best possible footing and understand how to tackle late payments from the very beginning.
- Anyone who's having problems with getting paid and wants some common sense, diplomatic techniques to get results.
Instructor
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 2 Reviews
- 6 Students
- 4 Courses
Jack has spent almost a decade as a career freelance journalist. His work has won 14 awards from three separate awarding bodies, and been highly commended or shortlisted for a further 20.
He's experienced his fair share of hurdles in his years working as a 'writer for hire', some of which he hopped over neatly, while others left him flat on his face. He's also observed freelance colleagues getting things right and wrong – both as a fellow freelancer and while working in staff jobs, when he regularly commissioned work.
All of the above – and much more – has allowed him to hone and polish his freelance techniques to create a successful, long-term business. He also works in an almost exclusively remote capacity; a video call is usually as close as he gets to his clients.
His courses are designed to help other freelancers do the same, no matter what their level.