Should I ask for a deposit as a freelancer?

Yes — a third to a half up front is normal and no serious client is surprised by it. It covers your early costs and acts as a filter: someone unwilling to pay a deposit is telling you something now rather than ninety days into the work.

What payment terms should I put on an invoice?

A specific number of days and an actual date, such as payment due 14 days from invoice, rather than “on completion”. Terms that are not stated explicitly default to whenever the client chooses to pay.

What do I do when a client does not pay?

Escalate steadily: a friendly check the day after it is due, a firmer note a week later addressed to whoever can actually pay, a phone call at two weeks, and a formal written notice with a deadline at three or four. Most late payment is administrative rather than deliberate.

Can I take a client to small claims court over an unpaid invoice?

Small claims courts handle meaningful amounts, do not require a lawyer, and a written agreement plus a clear invoice trail is usually the whole case. A formal letter mentioning it resolves many disputes without filing anything.

How to Get Clients to Pay on Time: Terms, Deposits, Chasing

Q: Should I keep working if a client has not paid?

Pausing work on overdue invoices is a reasonable policy rather than a threat. Continuing to deliver while unpaid teaches a client that payment is optional and increases what you stand to lose if they never pay.

Profitable is not the same as paid. You can be owed a great deal of money and still not make the mortgage, and this is how a surprising number of small businesses fail — not for want of work, but for want of the dull machinery that turns work into money in an account.

Women under-enforce this particular area more than almost any other. Not from ignorance — from a reluctance to seem difficult about money that is already owed.

Before the work

Get it in writing. Not a contract from a lawyer necessarily, for small work — but an email that states the scope, the price, the timeline and the payment terms, and a reply that says yes. That is an agreement, and it settles almost every dispute that would otherwise happen later.

Take a deposit. A third or a half up front, before work begins, is entirely normal and no serious client is surprised by it. It covers your early costs, and it is the single best filter there is: someone who will not pay a deposit is telling you something now rather than in ninety days.

State the terms explicitly. Not "on completion" — a number of days, and a date. Payment due 14 days from invoice. Terms that are not stated default to whenever the client feels like it.

Define what finishing means, and what a revision is. Most non-payment disputes are actually scope disputes wearing a different hat.

The invoice

Send it immediately. The day the work is done, not at the end of the month. A week of your own delay is a week added to every stage that follows.

Put everything on it that their system needs: a number, the date, a purchase order reference if they use them, a clear description, the due date as a date, and exactly how to pay.

Find out how they actually pay. Large organisations have processes — a portal, a purchase order, a specific inbox, a payment run on particular days. An invoice sent to the wrong person does not fail loudly; it simply sits. Ask at the start: what do you need from me to get this paid, and who do I send it to?

Break big projects into stages. Deposit, milestone, completion. It protects your cash flow and it limits exposure on any single point of failure.

When it is late

Most late payment is not malice. It is an invoice in the wrong inbox, a person on holiday, a payment run that has already gone. Treat it as administrative until proven otherwise — that keeps the relationship intact and it is usually true.

An escalation that works:

Day after due. A short, friendly note. Just checking this one reached the right place — happy to resend. No apology, no annoyance.

A week later. Slightly firmer, addressed to the person who can actually pay rather than the person who hired you. Invoice 104 is now a week overdue. Can you confirm when it will be processed?

Two weeks. A phone call. Email is easy to defer; a conversation is not, and it usually surfaces the real obstacle in thirty seconds.

Three to four weeks. A formal written notice with a deadline, noting late fees if your terms include them, and a statement that work is paused until it is settled.

Pause the work. Not as a threat — as a policy. Continuing to deliver while unpaid teaches a client that payment is optional, and it increases what you stand to lose.

If they still do not pay

Small claims court exists, the thresholds are meaningful, it does not require a lawyer, and having a written agreement and a clear invoice trail is usually the whole case. A formal letter mentioning it resolves a great many disputes on its own.

Whether to pursue it is a judgement about the amount and your time. But do not decline to pursue it because asking feels rude. The rudeness already happened, and it was not yours.

The habit underneath

Set aside twenty minutes a week for this. Invoices out, payments in, chase anything overdue. Not when you remember — on a day, in the calendar.

It is nobody's favourite twenty minutes, and it is the difference between a business that works and one that quietly does not.

What this article deliberately does not do

It does not draft your terms, tell you what to charge for lateness, or advise on any specific dispute — contract terms and late fee rules vary by state, and a significant sum deserves an attorney.

What it does is describe the machinery, so that being owed money stops feeling like something that happened to you.

Getting Paid