| Sorry, Major edit. I did not answer the question as posed first. We are primarily a service business that also sells hardware and software, and we design custom databases. The software almost always has "pay as we go" milestones in the contract. This keeps us funded and forces checking in with the client at logical points to make sure the design is going the right direction. All of our invoices show Due on Receipt, we grant 30 days, then either a cheerful reminder, or a late fee and reminder. Too many late invoices (three - we are rather forgiving) with no communication ahead of time gets the client dropped. On the service/sales side: With new clients or large orders, we ask for deposits or retainers. We also offer reduced rates of blocks of hours if paid in advance (can help with starting cash flow). As an aside, we use referral fees paid to people who refer clients to us. Arbitrarily I arrived at 30% of first hour and %50 of second hour (None beyond that) charged to the new client is paid to the referrer (Service work only). First, it gets us more referrals for work, and second we get to take advantage of the reputational value of the reference - Few people want to flake on their invoices if it is going to make it back to the referrer. YMMV. |