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My company wanted to get a small animation video done on our website. So they were looking for someone to do this job. One of my friends works in animation design, so I asked her to come up with a short sample and if my company liked it then we could go forward with the full thing.

So she sent me a sample, which I showed to my boss. He also agreed to pay 200$ for the full completed video. She did the video and my boss wanted a few tweaks, which she did. We finally used her video. Now its been a month since the website is live and my friend keeps asking me for the payment. I have asked my boss a couple of times and he says "Oh! yes! Will put in a word to accounting" Second time he asked for the account details, which I provided, and he still has'nt made the payment.

My friend sends me reminders every day and my boss is really busy. Also it feels really awkward to have to remind him to pay for work, which is being used on our website everyday by thousands of users.

How do I ask him for payment and to ensure he successfully makes it?

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    Should have had a signed contract.
    – paparazzo
    Commented Sep 8, 2018 at 12:41
  • Where are you located?
    – Ben Mz
    Commented Sep 9, 2018 at 0:24
  • 1
    The infinitely repeating problem of freelancers
    – rath
    Commented Sep 10, 2018 at 9:28

5 Answers 5

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This is not your problem. Your friend should have issued an invoice to the accounts department of your company (together with payment details). If she isn't getting paid, she should be calling the accounts department to find out what their payment schedule is, and what - if anything - is causing the hold up.

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    the accounts department doesnt know of such a job being done.
    – Procrastinating Programmer
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 19:58
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    @ProcrastinatingProgrammer That's not the point, nor does it even matter. The point is, this isn't your job. Nor is it your responsibility to get your friend paid. Your friend needs to get in touch with the appropriate people at the company. Be that the accounts department, business relations, HR, the CEO, whoever that may be. Even if the accounts department didn't know of such a job, they would presumably find out. That's THEIR job. If the company ends up refusing to pay, then it's time for you friend to consult a lawyer.
    – Jun Kang
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 20:15
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    Absolutely this. If there's no invoice, there's no official record that the company owes her money and accounting isn't going to pony up. Without it, all they have is a request to deposit an arbitrary amount of money into an arbitrary account for an arbitrary reason and that's shady as hell. Tell the friend to issue an invoice for the amount owed (payable within 30 days of the invoice date) and then let her deal with it from there.
    – aleppke
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 22:48
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    @ProcrastinatingProgrammer As a side note, in the future your friend should draw up a very simple contract (even if it's just a single page) that highlights what will be delivered and what the payment terms are. That should be signed by both parties before work starts. As soon as work is delivered, an invoice should accompany it.
    – ChrisLively
    Commented Sep 8, 2018 at 8:10
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    @ProcrastinatingProgrammer, your friend may think she doesn't need an invoice, or she make feel like an invoice is some kind of "professional" thing she doesn't know how to produce. But really, it's as simple as finding a Word template she likes and filling in the details: name, address, work done, cost. You can help her by telling her exactly who to send it to (in accounting) to get it paid. Have her refer to your boss in case accounting has questions.
    – user1602
    Commented Sep 9, 2018 at 8:24
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How do I ask him for payment and to ensure he successfully makes it?

You don't. Your friend does.

Your friend should send an invoice with details on it. The invoice should indicate that payment is required within 30 days. It should go to both your boss and your company's accounts payable department.

At the end of 30 days, one late notice should be sent.

At the end of the next 30 days, if payment is still not received, your friend should file for payment in small claims court.

You made a mistake by being a middle man here. You should have connected your friend with your company, and then stayed out of it. Your friend should have treated this like a business transaction. And collections is a normal business function.

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This is difficult because she is going through you to ask for payment. Its appears your boss can easily ignore you, probably because I believes you don’t have much stake in weather she gets paid or not. You are not willing to push the issue on her behalf. You should explain to you boss that you find it disrespectful to you that you found someone to help the company and now your boss is not paying this person. After that if your boss doesn’t pay her immediately the arrangement should no longer be informal.

You should stop asking in on her behalf. This will allow her treat this arrangement in a more professional manner. This will also protect you from any fallout if she needs to take steps to get paid.

She should request the payment directly from the company. She should send them an invoice using the post or mail. The invoice should detail the work done, the amount due and how soon she expects to get paid. If should also mention how she will seek payment if she doesn’t revive prompt payment. If she doesn’t retrieve prompt payment then some options to consider depending on your location are, a solicitors letter, small clams court, or selling the debt to a collections agency. However it may cost more to get paid than the bill is worth.

You should probably avoid arranging for people to work for your boss in the future.

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Verbal agreements aren't worth the paper they're (not) printed on.

You arrange payment terms in writing, signed by both parties before the final work is delivered. If there are emails describing the work to be done and payment, for a small job like this, it should be enough. She should copy the emails and send them with her invoice to accounts payable.

Your boss could tell your friend she agreed to do this work for free, and she'd be pointing to the email trail to substantiate her claim. Eventually, she might win, depending on many factors.

How people behave affects how people should deal with them in future. If your boss actively obstructs payment on this, it tells you something about him and probably about the company. Trust, honesty, responsibility, etc., are critically important in business. Having to sue a client to get paid will make contractors reluctant to work for that client. You can hope it's just not a high priority for him, tho it is for her.

If they actively balk on paying her, she should insist on payment in advance, in future (and charge triple for the first job) as well as going to small claims court (in the US) as others have described.

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Looks like you got involved in something out of your job scope. I would recommend you to provide your friend with the direct contact to the accounting department of the company you work for, I probably would send an email to the accounting department cc'ing my boss and my friend with his account information, since you acted as an intermediary for your friend you might want to keep track of this topic for him. In future scenarios like this you might want to recommend your friend to first send and invoice for his job before providing it.

Best of luck.

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