No payment... no goods.

In case you don't know, I do stuff on a computer for a living, mainly website building and pornography "research". What's that "you don't make money out of looking at filth", silence, this is my blog post.

Throughout my career (I use that term loosely) I have struggled with the concept of invoice "terms" and having to wait for payment. If you go into Asda you would not say, to the cashier, "Hello Vicky, I'll pay for this haddock at the end of the next calendar month" shortly before you strut out the door with a lovely white fillet.

I can hear you say, "that's a load of rubbish, what about being on account or finance, surely that means you can wait to pay?". Well it does but the difference is the seller is offering you that option, you're not dictating how you're going to pay. You've had the goods and you have to pay for them using the method the seller chooses. That's how "buying" things works.

However in "business" it's somehow deemed okay to choose when you pay... well guess what, it's not flippin' acceptable, it's a load of old jizz stained tissue and this idiot right here in the threadbare y-fronts is encouraging you to take a stand.

I used to tolerate slow payment, it was a bit like how a rambler inevitably treads in a cowpat, it comes with the territory. Shitty walking boots. Bad smell in the porch.

But why should anyone have to wait a month or more to be paid? It's 2013, there's email, electronic banking and skype... there's no explanation you can give me to justify why it should take any longer than a few days to pay for something you've taken receipt of.

On more than one occasion I even had to resort to taking websites back down. In one instance the client, who had avoided me for 6 weeks, calls me within minutes, all irate and shouty faced, asking for my bank details. The money is then in my account instantly but the client-supplier relationship is ruined, he's been made to look like a right baggy bum hole. Granted it all would've been avoided if he'd simply taken two minutes to make a payment online. But he doesn't see it like that, I've apparently "hounded" him, "pressured" him and resorted to "underhand tactics". The dick. It was payment for work I had done, for a website that he was using to make money for himself and somehow I'm in the wrong?

But then I did some sub-contract work for a larger company, they told me "we ask for a deposit up-front and the rest once the project is complete but before it goes live". I thought that was a very good idea.

Once I adopted that approach, I noticed clients who normally paid me by Algerian postal-order 20 weeks after they'd acknowledged an invoice suddenly had electronic banking and were able to pay me within hours. It was quite remarkable. Previously it was all about their accountant being in once a week and there not being a director to sign a cheque or "we'll give the accounts department a nudge again".

Previously I would've had to persuade clients to pay using tales of impoverishment, embarrassing myself and those involved into paying me for work I'd already done. But that all changed once I said "you can have the goods once I've had the money".

So here's some advice to those of you who work for yourself, for those of you with terrible cash-flow like me, make sure there is always incentive for the client to pay. Ask for some pennies up-front and then for the rest once you've done what it is that you do, but do not let them have the end product until you're in receipt of that money... if you do, you will wait, mark my words, you'll be made to wait by your most favourite client, you'll have to moan at them to get your pounds. And although you are entitled to that money you'll have to nag to get it and all that whinging will affect what you once had, the dreamy slow waltz transformed into a violent drum & bass dance-off between two chavy girls with no knickers on.

My clients are now wonderful and pay on time without reminder, I was only prompted to create this post as I stupidly made an exception. I let a site go live prior to payment. I am an idiot. A broke, nagging wazzock...

Weeks ago in this very dance hall a lovely couple glided around to the soothing sound of Chris Rea, a bright future ahead of them, perhaps even a weekend at Center Parcs. But now all that exists is two badly dressed girls, teeth missing, arms thrusting, terrible repetitive electronic music. ASBO inevitable. Pervert with his hands down his trousers in the shadows.

I only have myself to blame.

Remember, maintain that incentive... "no payment... no goods".