<story><title>The Complicated Financial Lives of Freelancers</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/653627067/going-it-solo-the-complicated-financial-lives-of-freelancers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sho</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s better to demand cash upfront, period&lt;p&gt;In my experience the vast majority of businesses will not entertain the idea of cash up front, period. I bet that you wouldn&amp;#x27;t either. If you were building a house, and the builder demanded cash up front, you&amp;#x27;d laugh in his face.&lt;p&gt;Finding good clients is important, but if you demand to be paid in advance, get used to waiting those tables because you&amp;#x27;re going to be doing it a long time. Note: you will not be paid in advance for waiting those tables, either.</text></item><item><author>anoncoward111</author><text>This is right. This is what many businesses do. It&amp;#x27;s better to demand cash upfront, period.&lt;p&gt;If they don&amp;#x27;t take those terms, then they don&amp;#x27;t get your services.&lt;p&gt;If that means you have to wait tables until you find a few legit clients, then so be it.</text></item><item><author>gjs278</author><text>ok and then they ignore the freshbooks invoice</text></item><item><author>gk1</author><text>FreshBooks is $50&amp;#x2F;month and you can automatically send invoices and schedule reminders. This is a solved problem.</text></item><item><author>prawn</author><text>That this is likely a submarine piece for one of the linked products or quoted entrepreneurs shouldn&amp;#x27;t discount the value of discussion. There are only going to be more and more people working like this and it&amp;#x27;s a huge price to pay for the &amp;quot;freedom&amp;quot;. I&amp;#x27;ve effectively freelanced for 20 years and it&amp;#x27;s brutal, crushingly so. Until you&amp;#x27;re big enough to have someone handling admin&amp;#x2F;etc, you are doing everything and things inevitably get missed or ignored. For me, it&amp;#x27;s been invoicing and chasing up invoices - to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years missed completely. End result is all of the hassle and pressure but with less reward.&lt;p&gt;Building specific frameworks&amp;#x2F;systems to work within is absolutely the solution IMO. So, like Xero but with a focus on an exact industry&amp;#x2F;locale. One-button follow up of unpaid invoices, automatic setting aside of money for paying taxes, automatic advice on rates. Too often, people try to fit the tools to their way of working when I think they&amp;#x27;d be better off fitting their work to the tools.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryanwaggoner</author><text>This is 100% untrue. I’ve been a freelancer for 11 years and I’ve coached literally hundreds of others. I never, ever work with a new client without getting at least 25% upfront. Never. It’s 50% if the contract is smaller than $20k. And I also never really get any pushback. By the time we’re talking payment terms, they’re sold.&lt;p&gt;If you’re doing work for clients upfront without a deposit, you are taking a huge risk. Which is probably why out of more than $2 million billed, I’ve only had a single client not pay me, and that was a startup that went under completely.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Complicated Financial Lives of Freelancers</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/653627067/going-it-solo-the-complicated-financial-lives-of-freelancers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sho</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s better to demand cash upfront, period&lt;p&gt;In my experience the vast majority of businesses will not entertain the idea of cash up front, period. I bet that you wouldn&amp;#x27;t either. If you were building a house, and the builder demanded cash up front, you&amp;#x27;d laugh in his face.&lt;p&gt;Finding good clients is important, but if you demand to be paid in advance, get used to waiting those tables because you&amp;#x27;re going to be doing it a long time. Note: you will not be paid in advance for waiting those tables, either.</text></item><item><author>anoncoward111</author><text>This is right. This is what many businesses do. It&amp;#x27;s better to demand cash upfront, period.&lt;p&gt;If they don&amp;#x27;t take those terms, then they don&amp;#x27;t get your services.&lt;p&gt;If that means you have to wait tables until you find a few legit clients, then so be it.</text></item><item><author>gjs278</author><text>ok and then they ignore the freshbooks invoice</text></item><item><author>gk1</author><text>FreshBooks is $50&amp;#x2F;month and you can automatically send invoices and schedule reminders. This is a solved problem.</text></item><item><author>prawn</author><text>That this is likely a submarine piece for one of the linked products or quoted entrepreneurs shouldn&amp;#x27;t discount the value of discussion. There are only going to be more and more people working like this and it&amp;#x27;s a huge price to pay for the &amp;quot;freedom&amp;quot;. I&amp;#x27;ve effectively freelanced for 20 years and it&amp;#x27;s brutal, crushingly so. Until you&amp;#x27;re big enough to have someone handling admin&amp;#x2F;etc, you are doing everything and things inevitably get missed or ignored. For me, it&amp;#x27;s been invoicing and chasing up invoices - to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years missed completely. End result is all of the hassle and pressure but with less reward.&lt;p&gt;Building specific frameworks&amp;#x2F;systems to work within is absolutely the solution IMO. So, like Xero but with a focus on an exact industry&amp;#x2F;locale. One-button follow up of unpaid invoices, automatic setting aside of money for paying taxes, automatic advice on rates. Too often, people try to fit the tools to their way of working when I think they&amp;#x27;d be better off fitting their work to the tools.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GrumpiNerd</author><text>I typically require a deposit and set a payment schedule although I&amp;#x27;m doing most of my work on UpWork now. UpWork is nice because they handle all the billing and payment hassles and I get a weekly transfer to the account of my choice. It&amp;#x27;s worth the 5% cut.</text></comment>