0

I had an agreement with a client to work full time with them for two months at a set hourly rate, and to send an invoice to them every month. For the first month, I sent the invoice and was paid after 8 days. The second month, I've sent the invoice and after a week the company contacted me and said I did not fill out my hours properly (I fill out my hours on a shared google sheets file) and so I made the necessary changes, and sent it to them. A week went by and they have not responded, I have sent emails to a few different people (product manager, and both cofounders) in the company but have not heard anything back.

What is the appropriate thing to do from here? In the contract we did not specify a due date for payment of invoices. How should I proceed?

Edit: I am located in nyc, so is the company.

Improve this question
4
  • Stop doing more work for them.
    – Dan Pichelman
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 21:39
  • I'm not working for them anymore, I worked for two months. Sent an invoice after each month, and have not received payment for the second invoice, which is a fairly large sum of money (full time work - developer salary)
    – mdash1
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 21:44
  • In Illinois you can levy a small interest charge for accounts that are 30 or more days over due... right now you are really only at 7 days though.
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 22:04
  • 1
    Unless you specified it in your terms, 30 days is considered a normal amount of time to pay a bill. Most of my clients pay in 20-30 days after I sent them the bill.
    – Uncle Dan
    Commented Oct 6, 2017 at 15:01

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

I would write up an invoice with a demand for payment. You can find examples online or a paralegal can write one up for you. Then I would mail that to them. If you're in the US, mail it certified with return receipt requested. Put a deadline on it as well. Tell them how many times you've asked for payment and that if you don't receive payment by xx/xx/xx then you'll take them to court. If the number is small enough (usually less than $5000) then you can take them to small claims court and a lawyer isn't required.

If it is greater than what your local small claims court allows, then you have a couple of other options. You can talk to a collection agency who will harass the crap out of them for a percentage. You can also talk to a lawyer who will send the demand on your behalf and file the lawsuit, if that becomes necessary.

Improve this answer
0

"A week" is not generally how fast people pay bills. Do you specify payment terms on your invoice? Net 30 is usually customary. If I had someone submit a bill and start hassling me after a week I'd ignore them too. By hassling both co-founders you are at very real risk of poisoning that well.

IF you haven't gotten payment in 30 days, send them an "overdue" invoice and call their AP department. For now, cool your jets.

Improve this answer
2
  • To clarify, it's been over a week (I sent them an invoice, they waited 1 week and requested I make some small [not really needed/miniscule], and when this change was made, I responded immediately, to which they didn't respond, so I sent another email after about 1 week [really more like 10 days]. I sent this message to both cofounders because it is a small organization, with only the cofounders, 1 product manager and I commonly spoke to the cofounders.
    – mdash1
    Commented Oct 6, 2017 at 13:31
  • 1
    Yeah, so they certainly have more things to do in their business than pay every bill the day it comes in. After a week they looked and saw you'd filled stuff out incorrectly and sent it to you. Probably after about a week they'll look at the new thing sent in. Unless there's other things going on. Without a specific agreement on payment terms, you have no legal expectation of immediate payment and certainly no customary or reasonable expectation of immediate payment. You must not have been doing this very long to expect sub-week turnaround on billing requests from a client company.
    – mxyzplk
    Commented Oct 6, 2017 at 15:03

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .