Contract work for company which has cashflow issues

ifconfig

I've been working on and off with a company over the past 4-5 years.
They had EI and angel investment at various stages but really struggled to even meet their basic overheads on salaries, etc.
I've started to see opportunities for freelancing work and I've actually got my P45 from this above company.
Cashflow was non-existent over the past 3 months.

They now appear to have a short term contract which might bring in some funds.
The company principal was enquiring to see if I might be available to do some training and handover/consulting at around 250Eu per day.
The trouble is, based on experience the money for the work done tends to be late and not ringfenced.
How can I approach making it a condition of me doing contract work for them so that the money for the work is real and not something I end up chasing them for weeks for ?

-ifc

seamus

ifconfig wrote: »

How can I approach making it a condition of me doing contract work for them so that the money for the work is real and not something I end up chasing them for weeks for ?

You can't. You can insist in a contract that your invoices are paid within a set amount of time, but at the end of the day if they break that agreement you will have to chase them for it.

Some thing you can do are get them to agree on penalty clauses for late payment (maybe include a bonus clause for early payment - 5% off or something), or perhaps get them to agree to pay you half up front. If the work is ad-hoc, then this may not be possible, but if they know that they're going to give you at least 200 hours (for example), then you could ask for 100 hours paid upfront before you'll begin.

srsly78

seamus wrote: »

half up front

And down tools the minute they are late with any payment. Loads of contract work out there, no reason to waste your time with people that mess around with money.

kayos

Or go via a recruitment agency and let them deal with the late payments...you will get paid and the recruitment agency will have to chase the company for their money.

srsly78

Haha recruitment companies are even dodgier. Have read many horror stories about the recruitment company going bust and disappearing with the client and contractors money.

Even then why would they cover payments? Contract is between client and contractor (with exclusivity clause for recruiter usually). Have had mixed results here, one agency would only pay when client coughed up - another gave me an advance once, instead of having me wait 3 months.

croo

or ask for a retainer contract.

kayos

srsly78 wrote: »

Haha recruitment companies are even dodgier. Have read many horror stories about the recruitment company going bust and disappearing with the client and contractors money.

Even then why would they cover payments? Contract is between client and contractor (with exclusivity clause for recruiter usually). Have had mixed results here, one agency would only pay when client coughed up - another gave me an advance once, instead of having me wait 3 months.

When I was contracting the dosh was always in my account long before the client would even get the invoice. But you do have a point that the recruit agency could go belly up before the client.

Suppose your experience was different to mine. Heck I even had agency's cover the banking fee's for the transfers from the UK.

But lets be honest if you know the company can hardly pay their perm staff whats the likely hood of them paying a contractor no matter how they are engaged.

uck51js9zml2yt

Why not do it on the basis on being paid when you arrive to to the training.

No money = no training and an embarrassed boss.

Trojan

Why not offer to do it on a 100% upfront basis? Money received in full 5 working days prior to engagement.