[jxf]

I'm a little curious about how the bill got to $100k. Were the payments going unmade for months while you continued to do work for them?

I usually asked for biweekly direct deposits when I was contracting with startups, and I made sure to add that to my contract as a clause. If the money stopped, so did the work. But I never had anyone pay very late, and if they did it was quickly remedied with a phone call.

Now, as the cofounder of a startup (http://uphex.com) who uses freelancers regularly, I make sure that my freelancer collaborators know I'm serious about paying on time. I carefully lay out how and when we pay invoices, and usually pay far in advance of when we need to, in order to build up trust. To date, it's worked very well.