I am a freelance graphic designer who has been contracting on site with a client for over 6 months.
Despite invoicing weekly, the client has been late (an average of about 40 days late) paying every invoice. To date, they owe me over £7,000 which is only increasing with each week I work for them.
I have chased them but the excuse is always they are also waiting on late payments from clients.
I have not enforced any late fee so as not to dirty the waters but now the situation is now becoming untenable for me and I need to work out the best course of action to take with minimal financial or legal impact.
I'm considering informing the the client this week that I will cease working until all outstanding invoices are settled, which I believe I'm within my right to do.
But, I think that they might ask me to hand over the work I've done to date, which I'm reluctant to do as this is work they've essentially still not paid me for.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Are there any legal implications of stopping the contract and withholding the work I've done so far?
I have no written contract with this company. I was brought on by a former colleague and we only have email correspondence which states when I started working (and I do have time sheets I've submitted throught the course of the contract for the work).
Any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Sorry in advance for the length of this but hoping I can get some thoughts from fellow designers / freelancers!
My seven year freelance graphic design business is now growing organically into an agency and I’m starting to see a real need to implement processes with regard to billing, delivery, management, etc... but there have been a couple of “grey” areas I’m not sure about and would love any advice anyone could offer….
Curious to hear if any of you have experienced the issues below or can recommend any resources that might shed light on similar topics….
Time management (lost time)
Are there any standard terms used by designers / creative agencies to protect against lost time if a project starts later than the agreed commencement date?
For example, my client and I agreed on a project and I was given a start date, which I scheduled in, but the project did not commence for 3 weeks and as a result we lost out on other work we’d turned down for those dates. Usually I take a 50% deposit which serves as away to commence the work but it does not necessarily “reserve” my time if there becomes a gap of many weeks between when we sign / agree on a date and when we commence.
Would it be reasonable to include a clause in the contract which states we will add a penalty fee - (say 15% of the total project cost) if does not start on the agreed date?
Client management (feedback)
I sometimes work with other small agencies in providing design solutions to their end client, so essentially I am contracted by the agency and they liaise w/the client directly and collect their feedback.
Often during this process, I find that the person at the agency is not filtering the feedback. What that has resulted in is things like the client asking for new requests which are out of scope or forgetting they fed back on something or just being all together unclear so that I end up spending more time on a wild goose chase trying to decode the feedback than I’m spending one design.
Should it not be expected that it’s the responsibility of the person at the agency to edit / make sure the feedback is clear (effectively, be the project manager) so I can focus on the design / amendments?
Payment terms
I try to operate on a standard 50% up front, 50% upon completion and ideally before delivery of the work
With one of my regular clients I’m a bit more relaxed but I just sent them an invoice for work I did and delivered in full without asking for any payment up front or on completion.
I asked if the payment could be made now and they obliged but stated that for future they operate on a 15-30 day payment terms.
So the question is - who’s terms trump who’s in these cases? It’s a conflict against the “payment on delivery” term.
Would be great to hear how other people deal with payment.
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Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to read or reply!
Be happy to hear of any links or online resources that might help answer these questions too as this is the first place I've come to!
I've been freelancing for quite some time getting the majority of my work through recruitment agencies.
But I'd also like to start branching out on my own as an agency and get work from clients direct however I still would like to be considered by recruiters...
Currently my portfolio site's name is based on design pseudonym instead of 'firstnamesurname.com' but the 'about me' section is in the first person which hasn't seemed to cause any issue so far.
But now I'd quite like to rewrite the text to describe my company more as an agency - so "our company", "we provide" etc etc. Which brings me to this question...
Has anyone found it to be detrimental to their relationships w/recruiters to use their company website for a personal portfolio? Do you find that presenting your portfolio as a company / agency instead of as an individual is seen as off putting for recruiters?
