Zvi Landsman is a Senior Web Developer, and is making a name for himself as the next big social entrepreneur in Israel.
Creating Your First Invoice
This is another link-posting. Web Worker Daily has published this article about invoicing your clients. While I'm tempted to copy-paste the whole article, it's worth clicking over to read the great comments left by their readers.
One that jumps out is this one:
Our new policy, which is becoming industry standard, is to charge half up-front, thus literally splitting the investment between us and the client.
Creating trust is always a tricky game to play. In the absence of qualified reviews and recommendations, both client and freelancer have to take some risk in business, or take action to minimize that risk, such as using a 3rd party escrow.
Good business doesn't mean trusting everyone - it means taking all reasonable steps towards creating win-win situations.
2 comments so far
Which is why I agree that one must have a solid reputation (or at least appear to be reputable) before they can ask for an upfront payment.
Yours is that the project might go on a lot longer than planned, might be canceled in the middle, and many other things that could go wrong from the client's end that you can't control no matter how good or experienced you are.
A business partnership is a partnership, and both sides must agree to take some of the risk or show themselves untrustworthy.