Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff they don’t teach you in design school, but should

94. One Line That Changed Everything about Collections

Getting paid can sometimes be a traumatic experience for a freelancer or a small business. Typically, we email invoices to our clients and they push them through their accounts payable system. If your client is a small business, getting paid on time often has everything to do with whether they have money or not. If you are working with a big corporation, getting paid on time has everything to do with their accounts payable practices.

In my early freelance years, I would send an invoice and then wait for the check to come approximately 30 days later. When the payment didn’t show up, I would politely send an email to the client to inquire about the late invoice. The client would then say they ...