There’s only one thing worse than working for a toss piece. And that’s working for a toss piece who doesn’t pay you on time. I have very rigid rules when it comes to payment, like most self-employed people. I expect payment within thirty days, which I feel is a reasonable time scale.
I got told about a great website some while back, payontime.co.uk. It details your legal rights to charge interest on late payments. It has a great downloadable PDF, which outlines how you should format invoices and approach charging people.
My invoices have for some time included some text in the footer telling people I will charge interest for late payments. This is predominantly used as a deterrent, and it normally works wonders. Here’s the text in full.
I understand and will exercise my statutory right to interest under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Invoices not paid within the credit terms stated above will incur interest.
Unfortunately some people think the text is there just for show and that it won’t be acted upon. If you use this kind of text in your invoices you need to be willing to follow it up. I have the next step planned if I still don’t receive any payment; A CCJ, which they most definitely won’t want to have to their name.
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