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Hyeonsu's avatar
Hyeonsu S Community Member

How to get paid before completing the contract and milestone

Hi there

 

I'm new to this situation and need your advice I made a contract which is a total of 7 hours of work and two milestones.  

 

But even before ending the first milestone, I found that this is absolutely more than 7 hours of work. So I asked the client to add another milestone but she is refusing it. Since I submitted the first result I want to get paid for that and end the contract. Is this possible?

 

And if the contract is ended at the first milestone like in this case, can a freelancer or the client leave a review about each other?

 

Please share your thoughts.

 

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

14 REPLIES 14
Prashant's avatar
Prashant P Community Member

No you don't get paid for unfinished work.  That is not professional.  Even if you end the contract without money being exchanged to you, the buyer can leave a private feedback.

 

Take this as a learning experience.  Next time think carefully in quoting the hours.  Once you start the work and discover that it will take more time stop working and explain the buyer your situation.  If they don;t agree - tough luck.

Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

This means you are not yet ready to accept fixed-price contracts.

 

Until you have studied the fixed-price contract model more carefully, only accept hourly contracts.

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Hey Hyeonsu, the client needs to approve the Milestone before you get paid for that specific Milestone. Once the client approves the Milestone, you can close the Contract, however the client is highly likely to leave a bad Review. It's always better to try to work things out with the client.

Yeasin's avatar
Yeasin A Community Member

Really helping.Thanks for the suggestion.It helps beyond the person who posted it.

Beth's avatar
Beth R Community Member

When you accept a fixed-price contract, you accept the burden of pricing out the number of hours at a rate profitable for you and getting it in the number of hours you projected. Think of it as a package deal. And once you negotiate that rate it's only fair to your client that honor the price that you agreed to.

That being said you can end the job after the first milestone gets paid, but there will be consequences. Ending a contract yourself will ding your JSS. And your client may leave feedback, and under the circumstances, it probably won't be good feedback. Between those two factors, is it really worth a downgrade in your JSS for a few more hours of pay?

There are a ton of jobs out there, but there are also many more freelancers. If you want to distinguish yourself as a go-to freelancer, then you'll give the one thing that distinguishes you from others and that is great customer service. 

If it were me, I'd finish the job the best I could, and move to the next client. 

Those five-star ratings will get you more and hopefully more profitable work. 

Good luck. 

I

Yeasin's avatar
Yeasin A Community Member

Thanks for the lesson.It helps beyond the person who posted it.

Tiffany's avatar
Tiffany S Community Member

 "Ending a contract yourself will ding your JSS. "

 

Absolutely false.

Nichola's avatar
Nichola L Community Member

You will just have to accept that your own assessment was not accurate. But going forward, I think you should complete the work you agreed to do though you may have to ask for extra time. So try to have another discussion with your client and see what is the best way of tackling this. 

 

If everything goes smoothly from now on.  Once you have submitted the work and asked for  payment to be released, the client has 14 days in which to review the work and either pay you or ask for changes. (When you give a client an estimate of cost and time, include just one set of revisions and make that clear particularly on fixed-price jobs).

 

Once you have done the work and  the client agrees to the payment being released from escrow, the money will go into pending for a further 5/6 days and then into your account. 

 

If you end the contract before you get paid, the money in escrow will be returned to the client. 

 

If you resubmit work via the "submit" button, the whole 14-day process starts again.

 

Your JSS will only be affected if you end a contract that you are not paid for. It will not be affected if you end it once the job has been paid for.

 

From what you have written, I think you should be prepared for less than stellar feedback, but one does recover from it, so make sure you learn how to use Upwork's systems before taking on any more work.  And as the others have said, it is always better to let the client close the contract. 

 

 

Sophie's avatar
Sophie A Community Member


Nichola L wrote:

Your JSS will only be affected if you end a contract that you are not paid for. It will not be affected if you end it once the job has been paid for.


JSS is affected by the private feedback the client leaves when a contracts is ended, either by the freelancer or the client.

Yeasin's avatar
Yeasin A Community Member

Thank you for the suggestion.It helps beyond the person who posted it.

Nichola's avatar
Nichola L Community Member

I apologize for not being clearer. Clients are not obliged to leave any kind of feedback if a freelancer ends a contract first.  Clients are informed, but sometimes simply disappear, or don't bother. In which case, if a freelancer ends a contract and has been paid, and the client doesn't leave feedback the JSS is not affected. 

Yeasin's avatar
Yeasin A Community Member

Thanks for the keypoints. It helps beyond the person who posted it.

Ashraf's avatar
Ashraf K Community Member

If I were you, I'd complete the full project get paid for the work I did and in future be careful when accepting fixed fee jobs. 

 

Closing the contract not only impacts your JSS but also limits your future opportunities, if the client leaves a nasty feedback about this exper3ince that is going to convey to your potential clients that  you do not honor your commitments to the client and no client wants to hire a freelancer that cannot be trusted to complete the job. 

 

 

Yeasin's avatar
Yeasin A Community Member

Thanks for the suggestion.It helps beyond the person who posted it.