Poll: What are your clients' average payment terms?
Pierluigi Bernardini Italy Local time: 00:10 Member (2011) English to Italian + ...
It depends on us
Jan 10
Dr Jérémy Anquetin wrote:
I am sorry but, shouldn't the question be: What are YOUR payment terms?
YOU are the providers, THEY are the clients (no matter whether they are direct clients, businesses or translation agencies)!
[Edited at 2012-01-10 11:54 GMT]
Yes, that's how it should go. In most cases, the fact that clients don't respect our terms depends on our capacity of dealing with them.
I generally put 30 days from date of (pro forma) invoice, and this is my average, though it may end up with a bit longer, especially if there were holidays in the middle, accountants not in office and so on. But for example I have one client that pays within 15 days, and if amounts are low, they may even be paid straight away or in the span of a few days.
Once it happened that I did a job for a client whose direct client was a public administation: as you can imagine, I received the payment after over 5 months, but I had known that since the negotiation.
Anyway, as soon as they are late with the settlement, I send them the first reminder at once.
In my opinion the low rates at which many work (even if they are not newbies), the difficulty in receiving payments, and other renowned "diseases" from which the translator seems to be suffering, all lays on the fact that translation (I refer mostly to Italy but this may be applied to other countries), which is relatively a new job, hasn't reached the rank which deserves yet, compared to the majority of other freelance professions, such as architects, lawers, doctors, etc.
It's still a cultural problem.
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John Fossey Canada Local time: 18:10 Member (2008) French to English
Public administration payment terms
Jan 10
Pierluigi Bernardini wrote:
Once it happened that I did a job for a client whose direct client was a public administation: as you can imagine, I received the payment after over 5 months, but I had known that since the negotiation.
Most public administration payment terms are governed by law, which virtually everywhere states 30 days.
In many jurisdictions the civil servants that run the payment system are lax but I've had great success reminding them that the law says 30 day payment terms, with the implication that they're breaking the law by late payment.
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Pierluigi Bernardini Italy Local time: 00:10 Member (2011) English to Italian + ...
It was not my client
Jan 10
John Fossey wrote:
Pierluigi Bernardini wrote:
Once it happened that I did a job for a client whose direct client was a public administation: as you can imagine, I received the payment after over 5 months, but I had known that since the negotiation.
Most public administration payment terms are governed by law, which virtually everywhere states 30 days.
In many jurisdictions the civil servants that run the payment system are lax but I've had great success reminding them that the law says 30 day payment terms, with the implication that they're breaking the law by late payment.
Ok, in my case it wasn't my direct client, though, so I couldn't tell them.
In my country every company complains about late payments of public administrations (months over months) - red tape and alike are a huge monster to be destroyed.
According to the last EU regulations, I think that the maximum term for payments is now 60 days in Italy.
[Modificato alle 2012-01-10 17:31 GMT]
[Modificato alle 2012-01-10 18:27 GMT]
[Modificato alle 2012-01-10 18:27 GMT]
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Mónica Algazi Uruguay Local time: 19:10 Member (2005) English to Spanish
VARIES WIDELY
Jan 10
Local clients pay for translations, whether official or not, upon delivery. International clients , on the other hand, pay within 1 to 60 days.
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Muriel Vasconcellos United States Local time: 15:10 Member (2003) Spanish to English + ...
Our leverage is limited
Jan 11
Though we are free lances, our clients often have cycles and procedures in their payment systems that can't be changed to meet the demands of a single payee. We are kidding ourselves if we think we can overcome those hurdles just by standing firm.
I have over 50 clients, and each case is a little different. Most of them pay well within 30 days, but not all. In some of the latter cases, it would be a waste of my time and energy to specify payment terms - I would only end up being frustrated. In other cases, they need to be reminded.
I vote for flexibility!
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Marlene Blanshay Canada Local time: 18:10 Member (2009) French to English + ...
one client
Jan 11
of mine is a university and that one takes months. It's a lot of bureacracy and their accounting system for outside contractors is really slow. I have to send invoices and forms by regular mail and then it has to go through a long laborious process. The projects are very interesting and I always get paid, but it takes forever!
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