Bill tries his first Billing

Remember my good buddy, Bill?  He did start that business of his doing building inspections, and by now has written 15-20 proposals for inspection work.  But, those proposals now have to go through that arduous process of being approved by HOA committees.  It has been a slow frustrating process for him, luckily he was not dependent upon living hand to mouth.

He did manage to get in one little emergency type inspection though, and invoiced a token amount for it.  It had been well over 30 days since this billing of his, and he called me to ask how he should be trying to collect for it.  First off, I told him don't even start thinking about that money until 30 days have passed.  I also told him to just place a call to the business and ask for "accounts payable".  Most likely his payment problem could be solved by talking to a low level staff person.  This is the best way, don't involve the professional staff in these matters unless you cannot get satisfaction any other way.

Cash flow for the small business is of course "King".  Without it, we might all as well be fishing all day, at least that pays in food (sometimes).  But of course we can't let the pursuit of the almighty dollar consume us either.  We need to walk that fine line between the clients needs, and our needs.  We all know, put the client first and all else will fall into place, right??  Sometimes this happens, sometimes not.

A few years back I did have an architect client, who took putting the client first a little too far.  The project was for a high end bar/ restaurant, on a site that the developer did not actually own. (red flag)  I was contracted to do the MEP design, on an hourly basis. (without a retainer) This client proved to be very demanding, making lots of additions and changes on the fly, and wanting construction documents in very short order.  To make a long story short, both I and the architect busted our tails getting the documents ready for bidding.  On the day I was to turn over final stamped drawings, I had a bad feeling about the ultimate outcome, so I called the architect and asked him for payment before stamping.  I suggested he get a check from this developer as he turned over our design.  The architect flat out rejected that idea, telling me "that's just not the way we do business here".  I relented and turned over the stamped plans, and the inevitable happened.  The project died, the developers asked for "time" to make "payments".  I eventually got paid, but I am afraid the architect did not.

The moral of this story is, due diligence is a must on any "unknown" clients, as well as a good retainer to be credited against the final invoice.  The time to negotiate these items is before starting work, if they won't work with you, better let them go on to the next sucker.  Save yourself the grief, remember, you could be fishing.