I’ve read quite a few posts about freelancing/contracting and how it’s important to have at least a basic contract in place that outlines how the project is going to go down. And there are many contract templates available online for this purpose.
The advice is always followed by expressions of the importance of getting some sort of advance payment, perhaps 1/2 before, 1/2 at the end, or to bill blocks of days payable in advance.
In some of my experience the client appears to completely turn this on it’s head, supplying their own contract, specifying payment at some future date. And payment contingent on all deliverables being complete.
I’m curious to know from others how typical/atypical this is in their experience, and how to handle such situations?
Has this ever happened to you?
How do you / would you approach such a situation?
Top comments (4)
Very interesting questions, I'll definitely will following the discussion here...
I just started my freelancing as a side gig, but here is how I did it and my experiences: I set up a basic contract with an hourly rate. I do my work in advance after the contract is signed. I bill in a defined period (most of the time monthly).
As you can see, it's very basic until now. Had no bad experiences yet, but as I said: they were rather small side gigs.
Thanks for asking these questions 😄
Thanks for sharing your experience.
The thing I find odd about the work in advance then get paid model is that your going to a company to get paid, but then you have to give them a loan (of your time), take on a bunch of risk, then eventually get paid hopefully.
Feels unbalanced to me. At least I know there are others seeing similar situations.
Really curious to hear from the pay something in advance crowd.
You are right. That's why your question is so good.
My current approach is heavily based on trust and it worked because i knew my clients very well, but it could go horribly wrong. I am not sure what to do if I don't know my client in advance...
Could be that I’m missing something but I can’t help but feel that trust should be happening in both directions in some way.