Get Paid With No Fuss with These 5 Tips

This guest post is brought to you by Jennifer Dunn of WePay - the easiest way to accept credit cards online.

Getting paid as a business owner or freelancer is sometimes a huge pain in the neck. We’ve all heard horror stories of people getting stiffed out of huge payments and clients taking years to pay up; they’ve likely even happened to you at some point. However, there are a handful of things you can do to ensure your money comes in when it’s supposed to. Try these 5 tips and see if they don’t speed up the delivery or your hard earned cash.

1. Be Specific

One common reason clients run away without paying is they feel like they didn’t get everything they asked for. They think because you didn’t (in their eyes) dot every i and cross every t they’re justified in taking off without paying you.

While this is just a poor excuse, it will be used against you at some point. Well, that is, unless you are incredibly specific about every detail of the work involved. If you leave no stone unturned and don’t leave any room for confusion the client will have no room to talk…or to run. Make sure these tiny little details include when you should be paid, too.

2. Don’t Be Afraid of Contracts

Many business owners and freelancers are afraid of contracts as they don’t want to scare potential clients away. They think by making someone sign a contract they’re telling that person they don’t trust them. The thing is, though, if someone doesn’t want to sign a contract, you probably don’t want to work with them anyway.

As long as you’re fair about the contract and make absolutely everybody sign one, there should be no problem at all. Contracts protect both parties, too – they aid you in getting payment and help the client get exactly what they want with the work you’re doing. There’s no reason why someone wouldn’t sign one, so don’t be afraid to demand it.

3. Open Lines of Communication

Another common excuse by deadbeat clients is they couldn’t get in contact with the business owner or freelancer they owed money to. How are they supposed to pay them if they can’t get in touch to find out how to pay them?

Of course this is yet another excuse, but one you can prevent by opening up your business to as many forms of communication possible. If you only give out an email address then people who don’t like to use email will be less likely to contact you. This means you’re more likely to go without getting paid longer than you’d like.

4. Down Payments

Sometimes clients don’t feel “invested” in the job they’re hiring you for. They agreed to the terms you set out and they definitely need the work done, but they don’t understand that it’s truly a business relationship.

To make them understand a little better, try requiring a down payment. This makes the whole thing a little more “legit” and brings them into the relationship more. The beauty of the down payment is you can set it to be whatever you want and adjust it depending on how much you trust the client. You may require 50% from a client across the country whom you’ve never worked with before, while only 10% (or nothing at all) from a client you’ve worked with many times.

5. Forms of Payment

Do you only take checks? Are you dead set against accepting credit cards in your business because you think it’s difficult and expensive? If you only have one or two forms of payment you’re severely limiting your business as well as making it easier for clients to come up with excuses not to pay.

The more payment types you have the better your chances are of getting paid quickly. For example, sign up for an account at WePay for an easy and quick way for clients to pay you over the web!

What other tactics do you use to persuade clients to pay you quickly?