Keep good faith with your freelancers during the holiday season (and all year-round). These tips can help ensure everyone has a prosperous New Year.
Forty percent of freelancers are expected to enter the 2018 holiday season with a median amount of $2,850.00 in unpaid invoices according to research Freshbooks conducted on a historical example of 10,000 U.S.-based accounts. And in the month of December, clients typically take 15 days to pay their invoices.
The co-founder of Freshbooks, Levi Cooperman, offered the following tips on how freelancers can get paid faster and make it through the holidays:
- Make invoicing a priority. It sounds obvious, but the sooner you send an invoice, the sooner you can get paid. Make getting paid a priority. Find an easy tool or system that helps you get your invoices out the door as soon as possible.
- Be polite. Research from Freshbooks shows that invoices that include “please”
and “thank you” get paid a median of two days faster than invoices that don’t. - Set clear terms. Make sure you include clear payment terms on all invoices. Be clear about how much you’re charging, when you expect to be paid, how you’d like to be paid, and whether you will charge late fees.
- Make it easy to pay you. A surprising number of people still deal primarily in checks, but they are the slowest form of payment. But now’s a great time to work for yourself because there are more online payment options than ever before that let you accept credit cards from your clients right at the time of invoice receipt. If cash flow is important for you, consider making the move to accept credit cards.
- Send payment reminders. It might feel awkward for you, but regularly following up on unpaid invoices is necessary. Some online invoicing tools even offer automated reminders.
- Avoid the end of the month hustle. The worst days of the month to send an invoice are the 30th and the 31st since, on average, they take 10-20% longer to be paid, according to Freshbooks’ data.
