<story><title>Just pay me.</title><url>http://blog.samuellevy.com/index.php?p=post&amp;id=21</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rwhitman</author><text>Late fees are critical. In some businesses the accounting department will manage debt by paying off vendors in the order of who charges the most interest. If you don&apos;t have a late fee, you get shuffled to the bottom of the pile and stay there. Accountants are generally hardwired to avoid penalties, so if they see there are penalties they&apos;ll pay before the penalty period (provided they have the money).&lt;p&gt;However I have found that if your late fee is high, they will simply pay the invoice and &quot;forget&quot; the late fee. And then you&apos;re left squabbling over the late fee, which is quite annoying.&lt;p&gt;Also note that I disagree with OP&apos;s interest scheme - in my case its a flat 1-2%. For a freelancer you don&apos;t want to tip the scales into lawyer-worthy disputes...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>larrys</author><text>&quot;Late fees are critical.&quot;&lt;p&gt;In theory you can assess late fees and you might actually collect some.&lt;p&gt;But the truth is if someone is jerking you around on payment and they offer to pay &lt;i&gt;sans&lt;/i&gt; the late fees most vendors will accept that and move on. In fact I&apos;ve had people who claim to be filing bankruptcy (claim) and offer x cents on the dollar for any amount owed. In the end you make a decision do you want to take the money or go for door number two.&lt;p&gt;Legally entitled really means very little. What counts is the cost of enforcing the contract and the time it takes and any leverage that you have (like a kill switch as OP had mentioned)</text></comment>
<story><title>Just pay me.</title><url>http://blog.samuellevy.com/index.php?p=post&amp;id=21</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rwhitman</author><text>Late fees are critical. In some businesses the accounting department will manage debt by paying off vendors in the order of who charges the most interest. If you don&apos;t have a late fee, you get shuffled to the bottom of the pile and stay there. Accountants are generally hardwired to avoid penalties, so if they see there are penalties they&apos;ll pay before the penalty period (provided they have the money).&lt;p&gt;However I have found that if your late fee is high, they will simply pay the invoice and &quot;forget&quot; the late fee. And then you&apos;re left squabbling over the late fee, which is quite annoying.&lt;p&gt;Also note that I disagree with OP&apos;s interest scheme - in my case its a flat 1-2%. For a freelancer you don&apos;t want to tip the scales into lawyer-worthy disputes...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>craigmccaskill</author><text>A late fee is a tool to encourage payment, if they ignore it and pay even just the invoice amount earlier than they otherwise would have you could say it has done its job.&lt;p&gt;As long as they pay the invoice, most people at that point will waive the late fee (providing it&apos;s not a very large sum of money as would be the case with the suggested 10% per week). I know I&apos;ve done this in the past when a client has called me up after weeks of nagging and apologised for the late payment and the lack of a fee.</text></comment>