Company failed to answer invoice mail

Question

I've been working as a freelancer for almost 2 months, full time, for the same company. No prior freelance experience. As per the contract, they have 30-45 days to deposit the money in my account.

I sent an email with the invoice, 3 weeks ago. Got no response. I find it extremely unprofessional, and really don't want to work any further with a company that, having its own payment department, fails to answer something like "received". Also, I'm not talking about a small company.

I got plans of writing an email in 3 days (Monday) stating that, unless I get a response, I won't work more than that week.

My question is:

• How are this situations handled? Would it be better to just wait for the last day of payment that the contract says, and then take legal actions?
• How can I write this email, considering that, if I receive an answer through the next week, I am interested in continuing working for the company?
• If I do get paid and continue with the company, but this happens again, how could I handle it?

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Further details:

I'm not complaining about not getting paid. I find that not giving any kind of answer to an invoice mail is rather unprofessional. Adding to my discomfort, they had previously behave unprofessionally, failing to tell me how/when to do the previous steps (sending and confirming the hours I did); and how/when to send the invoice; for everything regarding hours/payment, I have always had to send them emails insisting/asking to know how the process works. Also consider that if they fail to answer the invoice, I never know if they could have a problem with the bank/invoice details in the last minute, thus breaching the contract (if they informed me in say, the 44th day).

Also:

• for what I've been told, the client is really happy with my work
• I talked to the person in charge of the project about this, who supposedly sent a message to the person in charge of the payment, but I don't know anything else about it.
• I obviously have to invoice the work I've been doing this past weeks, next week (for a total of 4 weeks).

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Follow up:

This behaviour has been the same for all the 4 months working with them; I send the invoices, the accounting team doesn't answer that or the other 2 emails asking for a response; 3 weeks passes, I tell that to my contact in the company, and after 10 days I get the payment. So this is indeed a company with a serious problem making their payments and having a respectful communication with their contractors.

Thanks everyone for the input.

Answer 1

As per the terms of your contract, the company has 45 days to respond to your email, by paying your invoice. You have so far provided them only 21 days. It is rather unprofessional of you to hold them to a different standard than the contract specifies.

Yes, they might fail to pay you within 45 days. They might announce that on day 44, or they might not announce it at all, just fail to pay you. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but that's why you have a contract.

If you wanted different terms (for example, the company must acknowledge the invoice), you should have put this in the contract. It would be an incredibly strange clause to include, but you can more or less put anything you want in a contract, so long as the other side agrees.

Short of that, you could, in the future, try read receipts or try sending the invoice with a sentence such as "Please acknowledge receipt of this invoice" in the email body. But the company may choose to ignore your request and it would be inappropriate for you to demand this, assuming it isn't in your contract.

Answer 2

So you sent a single email three weeks ago and are now basically going to write the company off?

People get busy. Things slip. What you should have done if you were particularly concerned:

1. Send email
2. Followup in a few days with a phone call to confirm
3. Get a firm date the company will process payment by
   • If this doesn't happen for some reason talk with your business contact and ask about this
4. Followup again if that does not happen

You should never send emails when you desire a response in a certain timeframe. Especially if you are planning on quitting if you don't!

If you must document something, send your initial email and then followup with a phone call (especially if you do not receive confirmation electronically). Keep in mind not receiving confirmation responses from invoices is fairly standard.

Answer 3

"How can I write this email". Don't email! Call your contact there. Tell them you will be sending another invoice in the next week and that you want to make sure there were no issues with the first invoice you sent. Be polite, they haven't done anything wrong. They are still within their window of payment, etc.

It seems like you really just want confirmation that they got the invoice and are processing it. In the future, when you send an invoice, just call later that day or the next to make sure they got it. If you are lucky, they will catch on and start sending an immediate email response to future invoices saying they got it.

Answer 4

EDIT: It seems you've only waited 21 of 30-45 days. So there is no outstanding payment. Not all clients acknowledge receiving an invoice. If you require such an acknowledgment, you should explicitly ask for it.

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Your handling of the situation is basically correct.

The fact that the client department appreciates your work should be used/exploited further by you.

Tell them that you unfortunately are not getting through to the payments department, which is a shame as you enjoy working for them, but obviously need to be paid.

It is always preferable when you can have the client handle company-internal problems such as this; it's much more difficult to be alone against an opaque and silent corporate entity.

Monday I would tell the department you work for that you need payment by the end of the week - or you won't show up next Monday. Remember to add that you would much prefer just to get paid and continue working - but need to draw the line now. Anyone reasonable would understand - and if they really do appreciate the work, they will even fight your battle.

Answer 5

ChrisInEdmonton gave a very appropriate answer in regards to the company being within bounds of your stated contract. If the terms originally agreed upon do not fit your current business model then you should renegotiate when you have opportunity.

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That said, I wanted to shift the viewpoint of this issue which I think may give you insight into the other company's perspective. I would disagree that the company you are doing business with is being irresponsible. On the contrary, I see this as a sound business practice to wait until the last minute to pay what is due.

There is a concept in Finance called the Time Value of Money which states that it is better to have money now than later as money owned now can be invested for greater profit. In any medium to large business model, it is quite rare that a corporation will simply let their money sit in a checking account collecting no interest. Usually there exists a Treasury Department whose job it is (among other tasks) to reinvest capital in short-term (but risk-averse) financial instruments which will safely accrue interest while those monies are not in use. In a large enough corporation with the right instruments, sometimes these "idle dollars" can actually make the company thousands of dollars in profit over just a couple of days.

While your individual invoice might be small enough that the company is not going to win the lottery by delaying your payment a few weeks, it is important to note that a smart corporate billing department probably has a system in place where they wait until the last week of a bill's due date before letting go of the money. Over a large enough pool of bills, this will save them real dollars over a given time frame. Conversely, the Accounts Receivable department will have a similar motivation to get paid as soon as possible (just like you are trying to do).

So it is really a universal good business practice... you should always try and collect your payments as quickly as you can while delaying your bills as long as possible. To this end, adding stipulations in your contracts that support these goals is an absolute must. I've seen a variety of "tricks" to accomplish this including "carrots" such as offering small discounts to a bill for items paid within the first 15 days to "sticks" like including progressive financial penalties for bills not paid after 45, 60 and 90 days.

Answer 6

Tricky situation: There could be a few different things going on

1. Administrative hiccup or incompetence (most likely)
2. Intentional delay (happened to a friend of mine, they basically said "so sue us" )
3. Budget or accounting problems (there is no bucket to pay you from)
4. Something more nefarious (they intentionally cheating you)
5. Any combination of the above

Ideally you manage this without damaging the relationship (at least not right away). Your best shot is to work through the hiring manager to the person who benefits most from your work. Initially, stay positive and constructive. Something like

Hi, I really like working for you guys, but I haven't been paid yet for the last xxx weeks. I'm sure it's just a paperwork problem but it would be great if we could address it. The kids got to eat and if I don't have any payment by YYY date, I see no other option but to stop working for you and find another source of income. I really don't want this to happen, so I appreciate any help you can provide

That approach has worked well for me in the past.

Answer 7

It is very possible when you sent the email, especially if the subject line contained "Invoice" or "Receive" and/or the invoice was in an older Microsoft Office document type, that it was rejected as possibly containing malware by their email service. Very serious forms of ransom-ware are being sent in emails purporting to be "Invoices" using old Microsoft Office document types. Many email services error conservatively and block almost anything fitting the description, including email containing valid invoices.