Client disputing your invoice?

Last year received a message from a client about her 90-days overdue invoice. She didn’t understand what I was billing her for, because during that month, she took care of all her online stuff.     What 💡

More than three months ago I sent my last invoice to this particular client for some website work I had done that month. She started doing part of the online work herself, but never told me that she didn’t need my services anymore. I continued working on the items she sent me to upload until she stopped communicating. At the end of the month I submitted my invoice and waited for the next assignment. (Note to self: do not wait for your client to contact you; be proactive!!)  Due to other commitments, I did not contact her the following months, except for automatic payment reminders.

So, what was I do to about  this issue? It sounded like my client didn’t want to pay the bill. Should I just give up, cancel the invoice and write off as a loss? Or should I fight? Nonconfrontational that I am, I didn’t want to give up yet, so I wrote her back, explaining my charges and how I keep track of my time using Freshbooks. I told her that if she didn’t agree, I was willing to write off the invoice because I didn’t want to part on a bad note (afterall, she had been a good customer and who knew if she would ever need my services again or refer me to someone else).

Surprise of all surprises! She replied that she had forgotten about the work she had assigned to me earlier that month and of course she was going to pay the invoice! Lesson learned? Don’t ever give up without trying!

Having said that, I have to admit three months later that the invoice has still not been paid   :-S    After three reminders and our latest agreement I decided to write off the amount. This was the first time in all my 10+ years as a freelancer and it just wasn’t worth my time and energy.

Next lesson learned? Choose your battles wisely. In this case the amount owed was not significant enough for me to waste more time on trying to get paid. I also knew that I could not continue working with this client for other reasons than not paying her last bill, so I “fired” her… and it felt good!!  😉

By the way, I am using this awesome online service for my invoices called FreshBooks (affiliate link), that will automatically submit reminders to your clients. Happy to say it really works well, because most clients apologize and pay after the first reminder.