Unpaid invoices lead to frustration, resentment, and financial distress among freelancers. When you submit work to a client via well known freelance marketplaces, you expect to receive prompt payment. Unfortunately there will always be those clients that don’t pay or are slow to pay. Here are a few simple tricks to help protect you and your business:
Sometimes clients fail to pay on time simply because they are busy or disorganized. Send a friendly reminder notice through the marketplace’s message system. Invite them to get in touch with you if they have any questions or concerns about the work you submitted. Not only does this remind a forgetful client about an unpaid project, but it also sends a quiet but powerful message: You expect to get paid.
If the client does not respond appropriately to your request for payment, notify the freelance marketplace. This doesn’t just help you to collect the money you are owed, it also protects other freelancers from falling victim. If the client continues to solicit work and does not pay for it, freelancers could lose thousands of dollars.
*Be sure to save all correspondence with the client and with the marketplace so you have evidence of your efforts to collect payment. In many cases, a paper trail means the difference between a full and empty bank account.
Some freelance marketplaces have created payment protection guidelines to ensure freelancers receive compensation for their work. In this scenario, the client must respond to inquiries sent by site administrators. If he or she does not, the site releases the money to the freelancer for hours worked or projects completed. Contact the administrator to ask about your rights and the rights of your clients.
In most freelance marketplaces, you can leave feedback on clients’ accounts – either positive or negative. Use this feature to illustrate your experience with a non-paying client. It might prevent other freelancers from becoming victims themselves. Be sure to read the feedback policies for the marketplace through which you were contracted. Make it clear that you never received remuneration for the work you completed. This severely impacts your freelancer income potential and hinders your relationship with the marketplace as a whole.
*Many sites impose restrictions on the information clients and freelancers can reveal in posted feedback, so don’t violate any rules or you may forfeit payment for work completed.
Depending on the marketplace, you might retain the right to pursue payment outside the website’s system. Contact the site’s administrators to determine whether you’ll violate its rules by hiring a lawyer, filing a lawsuit, or retaining a debt collection agency.
When clients don’t pay, take a proactive approach to recouping your losses. While there are steps you can take to get paid, make sure you do your due diligence ahead of time. Try to be picky about the clients you take on. Review their marketplace history, including feedback left by other freelancers. Do you see any other complaints about unpaid invoices? If so, copy those complaints, paste them into a separate document, and email them to the marketplace explaining that you are concerned about the client’s integrity. It’s just as important to ensure marketplaces are filled with good clients as it is to ensure good freelance work. Good luck!