The Money-Go-Round

Does anyone in this game ever get paid on time? This, I'm afraid, may get a little bit ranty - apologies in advance...

Right now, I've got three big invoices outstanding. One's for some voice work, one's with a production house, and one's with a design company I did some work for last year. Yes, last year.

The VO payment is late because "the account exec forgot to bill the client so we couldn't pay you last week and then only one person can issue artist payments and he's away so we can't pay you this week..." So that's two weeks overdue.

The production bods say they didn't get my invoice in the e-mail. Odd. The CC copy came through to me fine, I had their address right, they've had a statement and a reminder and not got in touch...but nothing happens until I actually ring up their accounts person. And that's three weeks overdue.

And the designers can't pay me until their client pays them, which doesn't happen until the copy is approved, which doesn't happen until the client has actually looked at the copy...which was delivered in December. Correction, was amended in December. It was delivered in August. So that's either three or six months overdue, depending on how charitable you feel - in my case, not even slightly.

And everybody does it. Everybody. Miss a copy deadline and you'd think you'd killed the family hamster. Round the invoice up by a penny instead of down by a pound and they sue. But if they happen to pay a writer a month late, even though their own salaries go into the bank like clockwork... Pffft, what's the fuss about?

And all these things and more I can't actually say to these clients because, well, because I need the work.

I'd say "I need the money" but what's the use?

Ah well... I've got some invoicing to do...