partial payment up front

jeffreymorris26 · ‎11-20-2019

I've been running my own design buisness for the past 25+years and am new to upwork. I'm having some success and its turned out to be much better than I had expected.

One issue- For all of my contracts I normally get 40% of my fee up front. The is based on accrual accounting where money needs to be in the account as you bill against it. As I've mentioned, I've done this for many many years and is common process as a design consultant. Am I able to do this on Upwork? I know on the project milestones I could put in under the first payment that its due upon selection. Would that work?

petra_r · ‎11-20-2019

Jeffrey M wrote:
One issue- For all of my contracts I normally get 40% of my fee up front. The is based on accrual accounting where money needs to be in the account as you bill against it. As I've mentioned, I've done this for many many years and is common process as a design consultant. Am I able to do this on Upwork? I know on the project milestones I could put in under the first payment that its due upon selection. Would that work?

It used to be done until Escrow came about, then the ability to ask for an up-front payment was removed because that is what Escrow is for.

If a client asked Upwork whether they should pay anything upfront, they'd most likely tell the client not to do so as there is no protection.

You "can" do it (in that it is not a policy violation) but most experienced clients likely won't entertain that and it's not how the system is meant to be used.