Contracts, Deposits and Getting Paid On Time

Most payment problems are not caused by dishonest clients. They're caused by a vague agreement made cheerfully at the start, which leaves both sides with a different picture of what was promised. By the time anyone notices, the work is done and the leverage is gone.

This is general practice from how freelance projects tend to go wrong, not legal advice — contract law differs by country, and anything substantial is worth putting to a solicitor where you are.

Take a deposit, from the first client onwards

Half before you start, the rest on completion, is the common shape. For longer projects, thirds across start, midpoint and launch.

The deposit isn't about cash flow, though it helps. It's a filter. A client who won't pay a deposit is telling you something useful about how the final invoice will go, and that information is worth far more than the project.

No exceptions for people who seem nice, come recommended, or promise lots of future work. Those three are the most common preludes to not being paid.

The clauses that prevent arguments

A long contract nobody reads is worse than a short one both sides understand. The ones that earn their place:

• Scope, specifically. Number of pages, what functionality, what's explicitly not included
• Revisions. How many rounds, and what happens after — "two rounds included, further changes at £X an hour"
• Who supplies what, and by when. Text, images, logins. This is the single most common cause of stalled projects
• Payment terms. Amounts, dates, late fee, and what happens if an invoice goes unpaid
• A stall clause. If the client goes quiet for more than a stated period, the project pauses and the balance becomes due
• Ownership. What transfers on final payment, and what you keep — and that it transfers on payment, not before
• Portfolio rights. That you may show the work
• Cancellation. What each side owes if it ends early

The stall clause, and why it matters most

The characteristic freelance disaster isn't a refusal to pay. It's a project that's eighty per cent done, where the client stopped answering four months ago, and the balance is unbilled because it isn't "finished".

A clause covering this costs you nothing and changes everything: if we don't hear from you for 30 days, the project is considered paused, the outstanding balance for work completed becomes payable, and restarting is subject to availability.

You will rarely have to enforce it. Its value is that it lets you invoice without feeling you're breaking an agreement.

Invoicing so it actually gets paid

• Send the invoice the day the work is delivered, not at month end
• Put the due date as a date, not "net 30" — "due 14 November" is harder to misplace
• Include bank details on the invoice itself, every time
• Send it to the person who pays, not the person you worked with — these are often different
• Reference their purchase order number if they use them; without it, larger firms simply won't process it

A surprising share of late payments are administrative rather than deliberate. Removing the friction fixes most of them.

Chasing, in escalating steps

1. Day after due: a short friendly note. Assume it was overlooked, because it usually was.
2. One week: a direct message by a different channel — ring if you've been emailing.
3. Two weeks: a formal reminder referencing the contract, the late fee, and a specific date.
4. Four weeks: state what happens next, and mean it. Most countries have a small-claims process that is cheaper and less adversarial than people assume.

Stay unemotional throughout. The moment it reads as angry, it becomes a dispute rather than an unpaid bill, and disputes take far longer.

The leverage you keep by default

Don't transfer the domain, don't hand over hosting logins, and don't point the live site at the new build until the final invoice clears. Say so in the contract so it's expected rather than a surprise.

This isn't hostage-taking; it's the ordinary sequence in which ownership follows payment. Written down at the start, it almost never has to be mentioned again.

Screening before the contract stage

The best protection happens earlier than any clause. A business with a real problem and the revenue to fix it is simply a different prospect from one shopping on price and haggling before you've quoted.

Noticing which is which — before you've written a proposal, let alone started work — prevents more payment trouble than any wording you could add afterwards.