Having a contract really saved my skin when I had a client decide to only partially pay my final invoice.
I’d worked with this client a number of times previously, they’d always paid a deposit, paid on time and feedback was always great.
However, this time communication started to drift off and I got lots of excuses and delays when it came to settling my final invoice.
Dates when I’d been promised payment came and went with nothing. I finally received partial payment (about 50%) from a personal account, rather than their business account and thought “uh-oh”.
I followed up to ask when the rest of the payment would come and the client just completely ghosted me, even when I reached out to the co-founders as well as the finance team.
Having a contract was integral to me actually getting paid, and though it was a long, drawn-out process I did eventually receive payment and costs.
How the contract helped
Having a contract in place helped in a few different ways.
The first was that I had the client issued with a CCJ for non-payment, and the contract was part of the proof of that as it included payment terms, the cost of the work etc. At the time I felt like this didn’t really help me as the client never acknowledged any of it and it cost me more money and time, but in the end it was beneficial.
My contract also states that I own the copyright for any work until full payment is received. So I still owned the copyright for all of their website copy, product packaging, PR content, blog content etc as I’d done pretty much everything for their entire brand launch.
Having a contract was integral to me actually getting paid, and though it was a long, drawn-out process I did eventually receive payment and costs.
I then accidentally stumbled across a website which mentioned the DCMA takedown process. A DMCA takedown is a legal mechanism used by copyright holders to request the removal of infringing content from websites and online. I wondered if I could apply it in this situation as I still owned the copyright to the website copy.
I submitted a claim showing my original copy documents, the copy on the website, the CCJ for non payment and my contract. The claim was upheld and the content across their entire website was removed within 48 hours.
Suddenly the client was calling me, emailing me and sending me messages at 8pm at night asking what had happened and could I reinstate the copy. This is after about 6 months of ignoring repeated emails. I calmly replied the next day when I was working to say when I received payment for my work I would withdraw the claim. I had payment in my bank account 24 hours later - plus the costs of filing the CCJ and late payment fees that I’d added to the invoice.
This is all quite extreme, and I felt like just taking the hit quite a few times as it takes a lot of energy, time and admin to do all of the above for less than a grand. It was around 6-7 months from being ghosted to receiving payment.
But I’m glad I did it and I would do it again on principle. It isn’t fair that you carry out work and people decide to just not pay - when they’re actively profiting from your work that they’ve essentially stolen.
Contracts as standard
Unless it’s a really small project, I always use contracts now.
My contract is actually something that I’ve pulled together myself to meet my needs from various templates, and I suspect I probably need someone legally qualified to review it, which is on my list going forward.
Don’t be scared to politely pause on work until payment is received/contracts are signed.
I would say using a service like DocuSign etc. makes the process a lot smoother overall for you and the client, rather than messing around with PDFs, Google docs or printed versions.
Also, if a client asks for significant additional deliverables, make sure they agree the cost and that you get a contract signed for the additional scope of work. Don’t be scared to split your billing up into smaller, regular payments to avoid being left with a chunky unpaid invoice at the end either, and don’t be scared to politely pause on work until payment is received/contracts are signed.
It might feel awkward or like extra work but it’s really worth it and you have to protect yourself as a freelancer. Realistically you’re the only person who can look out for you, and your bills still need to be paid regardless of how long a client is taking to pay or whether they pay at all. You carried out the work and you should be paid for it as agreed.
And if a client gets weird about signing a contract? Probably a red flag.
