| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: In 2022, the longest payment term I have agreed to has been for... Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "In 2022, the longest payment term I have agreed to has been for...".
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| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 12:30
French to English
Quite a few agencies pay after 60 days. They are very reliable, so I'm not complaining. Direct clients mostly pay within days. I've stopped working with the client who paid after 90 days as well as the one that took over a year to pay a bill. (Admittedly I'd put a wrong amount, but what's wrong with simply telling me instead of putting it to one side and ignoring my reminders?).
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I agreed with 60 days with one new client as it was a huge edition job (payment due at the end of this month). My payment terms are 30 days, so these are the most commonly used by my clients. Some very dear regular customers (5) pay the day after receiving my invoice, one client needs to be reminded every now and then but he pays immediately after that…
| | | | Alex Lichanow
Germany
Local time: 12:30
Member (2020)
English to German
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Most of my agency clients have their payment term of 60 days, which they force translators to accept. Having a steady flow of payments either way, I do not mind this at all in the meantime, since all my existing clients are pretty reliable payers, with only one of them having to be regularly reminded of payments. In fact, most of them do not even exhaust their own 60 days.
When I can set my own payment term, it's always 30 days.
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Alex Lichanow
Germany
Local time: 12:30
Member (2020)
English to German
+ ...
| That last bit... | Oct 18, 2022 |
Kay Denney wrote:
Quite a few agencies pay after 60 days. They are very reliable, so I'm not complaining. Direct clients mostly pay within days. I've stopped working with the client who paid after 90 days as well as the one that took over a year to pay a bill. (Admittedly I'd put a wrong amount, but what's wrong with simply telling me instead of putting it to one side and ignoring my reminders?).
... in parentheses reminds me of a horrible agency I used to work for. They completely ignored my first invoice because I had some sort of small typo in it. While that typo was definitely my own fault, it would have been great of them to let me know rather than simply do nothing about my invoice. "Luckily", years later, they proceeded to migrate most of their end-clients to XTM and all translators from one central vendor portal to numerous individual portals for every single step of the workflow AND completely botched my migration, at which point I cut any and all contact with them and refuse to do any more work for them.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:30
Spanish to English
+ ...
After decades of working as a freelancer in Spain, I no longer fret about when my clients (not agencies) are going to pay me. Some pay more quickly than others, for example my best client pays me religiously at the end of each month, but they all stump up eventually.
I also have some clients that pay me in advance, which sounds great, but actually involves more admin.
[Edited at 2022-10-18 16:28 GMT]
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 12:30
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Some of my clients pay after 30 days, but I also accept 60 days. Having a more or less steady workflow means having a steady cashflow, so 60 days is no problem. I consider anything beyond 60 days as unreasonable, so I wouldn't accept it.
| | | | | 30 days "month-end" | Oct 18, 2022 |
Which in practice means up to 60 days after delivery, or 30 days after invoicing because I invoice once at the end of each month.
I find payment terms are very correlated to overall customer "quality" in other aspects, so 40 or 60 days "month-end" requirements are no longer part of my scope for "on-boarding".
Longer payment terms = more credit out = more loss if the customer goes belly up (real-life experience)
Philippe
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Why would any respectable company pay at 60 or 90 days?
They would have to be irresponsible not to have the resources to pay suppliers before they themselves are paid.
They're not going to earn signficant interest on it.
So ultimately it just means they don't care about their suppliers.
I always paid mine straight away.
| | | | | 30 days, but I always get payment eralier than that. | Oct 18, 2022 |
And sometimes I get paid on the same day I've delivered my translation.
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 06:30
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Other - please share | Oct 18, 2022 |
I've decided to work for free.
The rates and fees offered are so low, the onboarding paperwork so cumbersome, and the wait for payment so interminably long, that proceeding in this way simply avoids a lot of hassle.
| | | | | 45 days from end of month | Oct 18, 2022 |
But I still prefer these terms to fuzzy matches. And I get comfortable deadlines, and a fair rate. No problem for me though it is long, I admit but I'm not fussy about this. I'd rather do without fuzzy matches and immediate deadlines.
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Metin Demirel
Türkiye
Local time: 13:30
Member (2018)
Italian to Turkish
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| poor communication | Oct 18, 2022 |
Alex Lichanow wrote:
While that typo was definitely my own fault, it would have been great of them to let me know rather than simply do nothing about my invoice.
Something similar happened to me this year. I had missed the deadline for submitting my invoice (via email, for which I had not received a reply) and when, around a month later, I asked about the payment status, they said it was scheduled for the following month because I sent it very late. If they had reminded me of my mistake, I wouldn't expect a payment and I could arrange my finances accordingly for that particular month.
These things happen with the accounting departments, so I don't blame the entire agency, especially if they have wonderful PMs. But accounting is also part of the business, an essential one. So it affects us gravely.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 12:30
French to English
Metin Demirel wrote: Alex Lichanow wrote:
While that typo was definitely my own fault, it would have been great of them to let me know rather than simply do nothing about my invoice. Something similar happened to me this year. I had missed the deadline for submitting my invoice (via email, for which I had not received a reply) and when, around a month later, I asked about the payment status, they said it was scheduled for the following month because I sent it very late. If they had reminded me of my mistake, I wouldn't expect a payment and I could arrange my finances accordingly for that particular month. These things happen with the accounting departments, so I don't blame the entire agency, especially if they have wonderful PMs. But accounting is also part of the business, an essential one. So it affects us gravely.
In my experience, the ones who insist on sending in an invoice by a certain date are also the ones with management portals. It would be simplicity itself to automate a message saying "Thank you for your invoice. Given that we received it on X date we will settle it by Y deadline". They know, they can tell you.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:30
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Wouldn't work | Oct 19, 2022 |
Robert Forstag wrote:
that proceeding in this way simply avoids a lot of hassle.
Robert, ironically enough I don't think it would actually be more hassle. Such agencies would no doubt insist on you uploading an invoice as before, with all jobs neatly listed, in the approved format, but with a zero for the total.
And if you refused to comply, I don't doubt they'd threaten you with non-payment.
Dan
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