How do you deal with a client that's constantly late on payments?

[maritapm]

Hey guys, 

I am new to the community but have been working on Upwork for a long time. I have my fair share of bad clients and good clients too. I'm constantly working on human relationship development and don't want to upset any client, or build a negative experience with them. 

So how do you deal with clients who are late on their payments?

I have a client who started out really nice. He's still nice to me and never makes me think he's rude or unreasonable with me. But he's always late on payments and it seems like he may be trying to save some money? We agreed on weekly payments and weekly reports. I deliver the report every Friday and he releases the milestone that he approves immediately. That was the deal. Now I understand that not everyone has time to immediately do anything, but he's constantly late. Whenever I write that I earned (for example) $151,5 he pays me $150. 

I have to constantly remind him that he still hasn't released the milestone and even then he's late. I'm starting to sound like a money-crazy freelancer and I'm already too frustrated to talk about it with him. He never left me without payment, but late payments really mess up my budget, plus all these - $1,5 or $2 is making me feel like my work is not valued. 

I need to know what you guys think.

[petra_r]

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Marita P wrote:Whenever I write that I earned (for example) $151,5 he pays me $150. 

I have to constantly remind him that he still hasn't released the milestone and even then he's late. I'm starting to sound like a money-crazy freelancer and I'm already too frustrated to talk about it with him. He never left me without payment, but late payments really mess up my budget, plus all these - $1,5 or $2 is making me feel like my work is not valued. 

I need to know what you guys think.

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 I don't understand - what do you mean "you tell him that you earned...."

This is how it works on a fixed price contract:

1. Client and freelancer agree deliverables
2. Client funds a milestone
3. freelancer creates the deliverables
4. freelancer submits through the contract and requests payment
5. client releases OR it automatically releases after 14 days.

Is that not how you are doing it?

[maritapm]

Hey Petra, 

I write articles for him and we agreed that he will pay me by word count. So if I write for example 20 articles per week, I need to combine the word count of every single one of them and he pays me by then. 

We agreed that every Friday, I will give him a weekly report stating the word count and total amount he should include in the milestone. It's easier than paying small amounts of money per article. 

I have worked with other clients like you described. My clients would tell me what articles they wanted, they'd release the milestone, I would complete the work and request the payment, after that they would approve the milestone and get money. This client doesn't really follow these steps.

[prestonhunter]

re: "How do you deal with a client who constantly..."

The answer to every question that begins this way is always the same:

You don't.

Here are some examples:

"How do you deal with a client who constantly wears a green hat?"

Answer: You don't.

If you don't like working with clients who wear green hats, then stop working with this client.

This is freelancing, and you can stop working with any client at any time for any reason. Whether it is due to inappropriate client behavior or behavior you don't like, or any other reason.

There are ways to be polite and provide some advance notice. You can also try asking the client to change their behavior. Maybe they will change and stop doing what it is that you don't want them to do. Then the problem is solved. But the bottom line is that you are never obligated to commit to new contracts or milestones with a client if you don't want to, and you can cease work on an hourly contract at any time.

[petra_r]

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Marita P wrote:This client doesn't really follow these steps.

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 This client does not follow the steps because you let him not follow the steps.

OK, I also often work without a funded milestone for long term trusted clients, but that is ALWAYS a risk. You risk not getting paid every week. It need not even be any malice, the client could have issues, go broke, get run over by a train.

If funds are in Escrow you can submit and get paid whether the client is responsive, unresponsive, on a world cruise,  joined a cult or is 6 ft under.

[maritapm]

I tried to tell him that I needed milestones in escrow, but he never really understood the reason and said he didn't have time to give me milestones everytime he needed a new article. 

Now I'm deep enough into this project and can't find a way out. I'm so fed up, I'm starting to doubt if I want to continue working with him. 

[petra_r]

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@Marita P wrote:

I tried to tell him that I needed milestones in escrow, but he never really understood the reason and said he didn't have time to give me milestones everytime he needed a new article. 

Now I'm deep enough into this project and can't find a way out. I'm so fed up, I'm starting to doubt if I want to continue working with him. 

---

 Well, what I would do is TELL the client how you feel, in a calm, professional and reasonably unemotional way.  Then see if he changes his ways and take it from there.

You are running a business, you are not an employee...

[tlbp · Accepted solution]

If you know that you will create approximately $150 of work each week, insist that the client establish a milestone for that amount and fund it before the week begins. That would at least speed the process a little bit. However, I think your wisest course of action is to come up with a way to convince the client to end this contract or end it yourself and hope that he doesn't leave you a bad review. Your chances of not getting a bad review are greater if you end the contract before you engage in a long-term dispute over when and how to get paid. 

[shetani]

Would it maybe work better if you had an hourly contract and logged manual hours?

For example, your "hourly rate" could be your price for 100 words, and then every Friday you would do some maths and log manual hours according to the number of words you provided.

It would skip the step of the client creating, funding and approving the milestone (since the amount would be auto-charged to the client), and you'd get paid the exact amount you charged.

Of course, manual payment comes with zero protection in case of disputes or issues with client's payment method, but you're already kind of walking on the edge working on non-funded (English failing) milestones and the client hasn't cheated on you.

[maritapm]

Thanks for the advice! I’m gonna try and observe the situation further, and maybe then try this solution.