Getting paid faster

Chasing is what you do when the structure has already failed. Almost everything that determines when an invoice gets paid is decided before the work starts — in how the engagement is priced, staged and documented. This guide is about that earlier stage, where the leverage actually is.

Take a deposit

A deposit is the single highest-leverage change most freelancers can make, and the one most resisted. The usual objection is that asking will lose the job. In practice the clients who refuse a reasonable deposit are heavily over-represented among the clients who later pay late, which makes the request useful even when it is declined.

• Size it to your exposure. Enough to cover the costs you cannot recover if the project dies — subcontractors, materials, licences, and the opportunity cost of turning down other work.
• 25–50% is unremarkable for project work in most fields. Below 20% it stops being protection; above 50% you will meet more resistance than it is worth.
• Make it a start condition, not a request. “Work begins once the deposit clears” is a scheduling fact. “Would you mind paying a deposit?” is a favour that can be declined.
• Invoice it properly. A deposit is an invoice with a number, terms and a due date, not an informal transfer. It needs to appear in both sets of records.

Bill in milestones, not at the end

On anything longer than a few weeks, a single invoice at completion concentrates all your risk at the exact moment your leverage is lowest — the work is delivered and the client no longer needs anything from you.

• Tie milestones to deliverables, not dates. “On delivery of the first draft” is verifiable. “End of month two” invites an argument about whether enough was done.
• Keep the final payment meaningful but not decisive. A last instalment large enough to matter to you is also large enough to be worth disputing. Many suppliers settle around 20–30%.
• Invoice the milestone the day it is met. Delay here is pure self-harm; the payment clock does not start until you send it.

Remove the friction before the first invoice

A surprising share of late payments are administrative rather than financial. These questions take one email at kickoff and eliminate whole categories of delay:

• Who should invoices go to? Often an accounts inbox rather than your day-to-day contact. An invoice sent to the wrong person can sit unseen indefinitely.
• Do you use purchase orders? If so, get the PO number before invoicing. Without it, many systems reject automatically and silently.
• When is your payment run? Tells you the real due date, whatever your terms say, and lets you time invoices to land just before it rather than just after.
• Is there an onboarding or supplier-setup process? Large organisations often cannot pay anyone not yet in their vendor system, and setup can take weeks. Start it before you need it.
• What must appear on the invoice? Some clients require a cost centre, project code or contract reference. Missing it means rejection.

Retainers, and why they change the arithmetic

A retainer replaces the invoice-by-invoice negotiation with a single recurring one. Even a modest retainer smooths cash flow more than a much larger project fee, because the amount is predictable and the payment mechanism gets set up once.

• Bill in advance, not in arrears. A retainer invoiced at the start of the period is the whole point; one invoiced afterwards is just a monthly project.
• Define what happens to unused time. Rolls over, expires, or is capped — any of these works, but silence guarantees a disagreement.
• Set a notice period. A month either way stops a retainer ending with no warning.
• Automate collection where you can. A standing bank instruction or card mandate removes the human decision from the loop entirely.

Make paying easy

Every additional step between reading the invoice and completing the payment loses some proportion of payers to delay.

• Put full bank details on the invoice itself — not in the covering email, which gets detached from the PDF the moment it is filed.
• Offer the method the client already uses. Bank transfer for most business clients; card or a payment link for individuals and small businesses, where the processing fee usually costs less than the delay.
• Include a payment reference and ask them to use it, so you can reconcile without chasing.
• Send the PDF as an attachment. A link behind a login is one more reason to deal with it later.

Price the delay

If a client requires 90-day terms, that is a financing arrangement and it has a cost. Treating it as a fact of life rather than a priced variable is how suppliers end up funding much larger businesses for free. You can quote a rate for their terms and a lower one for shorter terms — presenting it as a choice rather than a complaint tends to go better than either accepting silently or refusing outright.

Common questions

Related guides

• Invoice payment terms explainedNet 30, EOM, 2/10 and what they cost you
• How to chase an unpaid invoiceA five-stage escalation ladder
• Quote, estimate, proposal or tender?Which one binds you, and when
• Late payment fees and interestWhat you can legally charge, and where