Billing a client

[Chris Jack]

One other thing. I'm not suggesting lawyering up should necessarily be your first port of call. The longest arrears I have ever had was something like 5 months, but there was a lot of goodwill and trust on my part in that case. I was working for a software house that was running low on cash. They were attempting to refinance themselves but the problem was the company founder didn't want to dilute his holding too much so was trying to (effectively) get money from his mates to maintain his shareholding when the new cash came in.

I, and the other contractors, kept getting reassurances that there was no issue about being paid: it was just a question of when.

I had had a fair amount of money in my corporate account so I was able to live off that for a while - but about the 5 month mark, I did have to say to the company that it was getting past a point of goodwill - and was getting to the point where I was physically not going to be able to continue for financial reasons. At which point, they found some money to pay me some (not all) of the arrears. And eventually they completely caught up.

Obviously the high level risk in these circumstances is that contractors are very low down the pecking order if the company were to go into receivership.

Chris