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Ask Slashdot: How To Collect Payments From a Multinational Company?
An anonymous reader writes "I run a small dev shop focused on web development, based in Europe. For the past six years we've had lots of successful projects with clients from CEE, Western Europe and the U.S. One of our main clients was based in the U.S. We started working for them in 2008, while they were a 'promising start-up' and everything went smoothly until they were bought by a multinational corp. We couldn't be happier to work for such a big player in the market, andwe even managed to get by with huge payment delays (3-4 months on a monthly contract), but now, after more than two years working for them, I have the feeling we're getting left out. We have six-month-old unpaid invoices and we're getting bounced between the E.U. and U.S. departments every time we try to talk to them. What can a small company do to fight a big corporation that's NASDAQ listed and has an army of lawyers? They've been getting a lot of bad press lately so I don't think that will scare them either."
Find a tentacle close to you and say that you have to pay rent so sadly you're going to have to sue said tentacle. Take an an onion and maybe a friendly, competent, but not-massively-expensive lawyer.
In the UK, any invoice not paid for 21 days beyond the agreed date renders the non-payer liable to liquidation. Liquidating clients is not great (though you should have acted on your credit control rather sooner) but I once had to threaten a major banking client with it and at the end of a memorable Friday I got my very very overdue money and my client got itself a new head of accounts, and I found that I had a few powerful friends inside the company amongst those pleased with my work for them.
6 months is technically known as "taking the piss".
Stop doing any further work until you get some sort of staged payment started, or start legal action. If you're entitled to the money and you take it slowly and gently and without grandstanding, you may well get it, and may even keep the client.
Start credit control earlier in future: that's your responsibility to limit damage.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Add in a ~10% overhead and markup to all invoices.. then offer 3% net 30 payment terms. Most big companies have an accounting policy that says they must take the 3% discount (because it is the equivalent of borrowing money at >36% interest, something accountants hate.) The late fee is a little trickier, but write on the invoice that late fees of 6% per month are added after 60 days. If they complain about a late fee when you submit the invoice, kindly remind them that it only applies if the payment is later than 60 days, a more than fair period of time.
Lastly, follow up a day or two after you email the invoice. "Hi, just wanted to make sure you got my invoice and check on the status of it.." Make sure you have a name and phone number of the A/P person who will be paying it. Call every day regarding late invoices...
Good Luck!
And enjoy your libel suit. Of course it won't matter if they haven't got a leg to stand on and you'll win in court because that will cost you several plane flights and 6 figures in lawyers fees.
You simply don't work for the big corps as a contractor as 9 times out of 10 you say "welcome" they'll say "mat!" and walk right over you. I have seen guys put out of business because trying to get these greedy fucks to pay is like squeezing blood out of a stone. the longer they can go without paying you the more they can get in interest on the money so they aren't out shit, meanwhile your ass ends up on the breadline.
If it were me I'd stop all work for said corp and talk to a lawyer. sometimes a letter written on legal stationary will be enough but you better learn your lesson and not do shit for them again or you'll be doing the same tango every damned time the bill is due.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
5) Sell the unpaid invoices to a collection agency and let them worry about it, and never work for the company ever again. You won't get anywhere near what you were supposed to get paid. But it will be off your books and done with, you won't have to worry about it any more, and depending on your local tax laws the loss is most likely deductible.
Plus collection fees. If they don't pay within 3 more months, find out if you can put a lien on U.S. properties. After your final notice for payment, inform them that you have no alternative but fall back on legal remedies to collect your debt. Include the cost of legal representation required to collect on the debt. This may seem like small potatoes to the multinational, but I'm sure you can jack up the potato count substantially. More important you want to get in and out fast, these are flakes.
Yep - put it all together. If you are in the UK, and they have a UK subsidiary, then you can apply to the High Court for a winding up order - you have to serve an order for payment (a "statutory demand") and have some proof that the payment is valid, and if they don't pay within 21 days, you close them down. Brilliant!
I had a friend who, back in the 90's, served such an order on Hewlett Packard's UK arm. Wow baby did it get their attention!! Because if they don't get it sorted, then they are declared insolvent by the High Court and then their accounts are frozen and administrators are called in. They can dispute it and restrain the petition - or they can pay up rather quickly, which in this case they did.
He figured he'd never get any more work from them - but at that point he didn't care because he wasn't getting paid.