Clients should be quick at making payments

[jenny_twb]

Is there any help for freelancers on getting payments effected in quick timing once a job is done? Some clients reach out to work for them with so much haste and constant bugs during the work, only for you to be done, and they take forever to make payments. The freelancer uses up a lot of time and money sometimes to get work done, and can only expect to receive payments not more than 1 week after the job before Upwork's 5 day payment hold. Is there a right channel for this complaint or can an Upwork rep come forth to solve this problem? 

Time is money and the long hold up by some of these clients is not cool at all. 

It will be great if a solution is made to this problem. 

Thanks.

[rolludesig]

totally agree...thats what i pointed some time back...at times clients takes days to release the payment and  5 day lock in period further delay the things..the payment which should be in our bank account in 2 days takes 10 days in case of fixed price projects and around 20 days at times for hourly ones.

[prestonhunter]

It sounds like you are both talking about many factors in the timing of when we receive money that clients have no control over.

With hourly contracts, clients have nothing to do with when freelancers get paid.

With fixed-price contracts, clients have nothing to do with the security period. Clients have nothing to do with how long it takes withdrawn to become available in your bank account.

When it comes to the timing of receiving money, the only factor that clients have any control over is releasing payment after work has been submitted.

I would not say that "clients should be quick at making payments." Upwork allows clients up to 14 days to review submitted work.

So if clients take that long, or if clients never release payment manually and allow payment to be released automatically, they are following Upwork's rules.

I don't have a problem if somebody says "I prefer to work only with clients who release fixed-price payments quickly" or "I would like Upwork to change their policies so that freelancers are paid sooner."

But with all the possible bad things that we hear about bad clients doing, I wouldn't want to say that clients are doing something wrong when they're following Upwork's rules.

[yitwail]

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@Jennifer T wrote:

The freelancer uses up a lot of time and money sometimes to get work done 

I've never used my own money to complete a job. If you need to spend money on things like supplies, you have to factor that in when you bid for a job. As far as your main question goes, Upwork can't speed up client payments on fixed price jobs, unless they shorten the 14 day review period for clients, and I don't think that will happen because it's been 14 days forever and repeat clients who've hired many freelancers are used to it and might take their business elsewhere if it was changed. For hourly jobs, clients only get 5 days to review, and I don't think anyone can argue that's too long.

[aocumen]

Hi Jennifer, 

I checked your account and I'm not sure which client you are referring to. I saw that your fixed-price contracts have either milestones in place, or have milestones paid already, which is both a good thing. 

If you are referring to the project that you submitted an hour ago, please know that your client has 14-days to review the work that you submitted. If the 14-days pass without the client asking for any revisions, the money in escrow will be automatically paid to your account. This payment will go through the 5-day security period, to ensure that your client's payment method checks out. 

While it has been suggested before, please know that the review period is in place to guarantee that both client and freelancer is covered by the Fixed-Price Protection Program. At the same time, our team is not considering reducing the timeline for automatically releasing Escrow funds. While we continue to test ways to get freelancers' earnings faster to them, at this point we are not able to offer shorter security period for all transactions. Security remains to be our priority

[prestonhunter]

Note that every freelancer has a right to decide not to work with a client again.

If you're a freelancer who does fixed-price clients, and you work for:

Jane - paid 1 hour after work was submitted

Dan - paid 1 day after work was submitted

Greg - paid 13 days after work was submitted

...You certainly have the right to decline the next time Greg (or even Dan!) asks you to work for them.

[holymell]

I guess I don't much care so long as I get paid.

Right now I'm waiting on like $900. I have $100 in my checking account so yeah, I'll get a bit antsy. This time I made the mistake of not factoring in the worst case scenario. Usually, I do. So that was my fault. I know on fixed price the client has two weeks to approve the work and release my payment, and on hourly jobs, I know that it takes two weeks to get that money.

This is what I signed up for. I'm ok with it. I'm planning better for the future so my checking account isn't so abysmal.

I'd suggest getting a planner and writing out the latest possible dates you will get your payments so you can plan bills around that. It's worked well for me (except for this week lol).