Self-Employed And Not Been Paid For Completed Work

Share this post!

Self-Employed And Not Been Paid For Completed Work – What To Do

Are you self-employed and have not been paid for services or products you’ve supplied? If so, this can be an extremely difficult situation and can severely affect your cash flow.

Not getting paid is obviously quite a big issue when being self-employed, and it’s essential to know how to deal with the situation.

Customers and clients will usually pay what you’re owed on time and without issue, however it’s common for most self-employed contractors to be stung by a client who puts off paying on time or at all.

Not only is it wrong for clients to put off paying you, but it will usually go against the terms set out at the start of a project.

These terms, or “Payment Terms” as referred to in various business settings, will outline how long after the completion the clients will have to pay.

Ignoring the payment terms is in clear violation of the contract and must be acted on.

When faced with this situation, it’s essential to know how to react and know the best options available to you. It’s extremely easy to let your emotions get the better of you but you must stay firm, professional and calm!

Ensuring you maintain a professional approach in any communication with the debtorwill help to resolve the issue, and, if you are asked for further work this will aid in maintaining a good relationship between yourself and the client.

Luckily for a self-employed contractor who hasn’t been paid such as yourself, we are the Uks No1 for Debt Collection comparisons. Our website is the easiest way to obtain Debt Collection quotations.

As an accredited member of the UK Debt Collection Bureau, we only work with the leading debt collection agencies in the UK. Many of the organisations we work with are all fully authorised members of the Credit Services Association and hold accreditations such as ISO9001 and Investors in People.

We are committed to searching for the best solution to your Debt Collection requirements, providing a cost-effective solution whilst offering the best service guarantee.

How You Should Collect Unpaid Invoices From Clients

If you are Self-Employed And Not Been Paid For Completed Work, we have created a step by step guide regarding the best practices on how to retrieve money owed to you.

You are not alone in this and our comprehensive guide will help to shed some light on some of the best ways to approach this situation.

Stay Cool, Calm & Collected

It’s no secret that having late or non-paying customers can take a toll on your mental health due to the extremely stressful nature of the situation.

You must remain calm during stressful periods of non-payment, as doing the opposite could add unwanted stress to yourself and your business, or at worst compromise future business opportunities.

There are various reasons why a client may have missed a payment or has indicated they are not going to pay, so it’s vital you persevere and follow our advice below.

Establish Payment Terms Early On In The Process

Before ANY works are carried out for the client, it’s recommended that you make sure to establish clear payment terms, in wiriting.

“Payment Terms” refers to the amount of days after works have been completed that the customer is required to pay and how they will do so. These are usually on 30, 60, or 90-day payment terms depending on the relationship and trust between you and the client.

As a self-employed professional it is easy to take verbal trust that a client will pay, as it’s important to gain the work. In this case It may seem like a duplication of the verbal agreement you have made with your client, but ideally you still need to ensure you establish payment terms in writing at first.

It’s recommended that measures such as these are put in place for self-employed contractors or freelancers to ensure payment.

These should ideally be written down, and will include:

• Discussing when you will invoice the client
• What the payment terms will be
• Is there to be a deposit paid before the works go ahead
• You may also want to include late payment charges onto your terms

Enforcing these parameters before taking on work will hopefully reduce the number of times that your client doesn’t pay on time.

Initiate A Contract (Get Something In Writing)

In every business sector across the world, contracts are created as a form of agreement which is intended to be enforceable by law. This is why it’s extremely important to form a contract with your client on the occasion should something go wrong.

As mentioned above regarding payment terms, this is something that can be added to a contract to protect yourself if the client decides not to pay. This is the closest link to proof of when the client agreed they were going to originally pay.

If you have written proof that the client has agreed these terms, or the contracted work in general, this will make it a lot easier for you to make your point should you have to continue this further.

Ensure Thorough Communication With The Customer

Communicating with a client regarding finances may seem like a difficult task, after all t iss a common perception as many pdoes not like speaking about money. In a business situation, conversations about money are entirely appropriate and can often help to portray a professional image.

As the person that has carried out the work or services for the client and the one who is to be paid for this, you have every right to contact your client to retrieve your owed monies.

If the client is hostile in their communications, this will indicate their intentions in regards to whether they’ll be willing to pay you or not.

Communication with the customer can be done in a few ways, including:

• Calling the client to politely chase for the payment.
• Sending a letter of late invoice matters.
• A statement of outstanding cost.

A statement of outstanding cost should be sent if the first two methods on that list fail to provide any form of payment forthcoming.

Don’t hesitate to get in contact with the client as soon as you begin to suspect they haven’t or aren’t going to pay for the work you’ve done.

Throughout any communication with the client, it is important to remain calm and professional, maintaining a moral high-ground regardless of the debtor’s attitude. If the conversation devolves into an argument, it may be more difficult to reach the debtor later, and it may also compromise future business opportunities with the client.

Instruct A Debt Collection Agency To Recover Your Debt

If all of the methods above have failed and you are still in the same situation you were at the start of this article, then it is time to instruct a debt collection agency to recover your debt.

At Best4DebtCollection, we are committed to ensuring we find the right Debt Collection Agency for your requirements and will never recommend anyone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

All the partners that we recommend as part of our service are fully vetted.

We considering all the following factors before sourcing quotes for our clients:

1. Industry
2. Locality
3. Nature of Debt
4. Value of Debt
5. Volume of Debt

It’s imperative that you choose the right collection agency when recovering monies owed, as choosing the wrong company is sometimes worse than choosing no company at all.

All information supplied to us is treated with the strictest of confidence. We do not sell any details to marketing companies or use it for any spurious purpose.