[HN Gopher] The Payment Dance
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The Payment Dance
Author : ColinWright
Score : 30 points
Date : 2022-02-04 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.solipsys.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.solipsys.co.uk)
| gus_massa wrote:
| In which steps are the failures more usual?
|
| Do people expect the talk to be free or "for exposure"?
|
| Is it common to not get paid after the talk?
|
| How common is to get a bad description of the expected audience?
| (size, age, math level, ...)
| ColinWright wrote:
| These are great questions for a more detailed page. Most of the
| issues you raise are no longer problems for me, because I now
| have an explicit time-scale and check-list that I go through to
| preempt them.
|
| However:
|
| > _In which steps are the failures more usual?_
|
| Usually it's getting the PO number from Finance, or otherwise
| getting explicit agreement about payment details.
|
| > _Do people expect the talk to be free or "for exposure"?_
|
| Some do, but in my very first response I ask "Do you have a
| budget?" If that's not answered, I repeat the question with no
| other information. In my field there's a lot of good will, and
| people (almost invariably) act in good faith.
|
| > _Is it common to not get paid after the talk?_
|
| Very uncommon. The expectation is laid down early that I'll
| give a good presentation, invoice them for an agreed amount,
| and they'll pay. I think in 30 years I've only had three or
| four people ghost me and not pay.
|
| > _How common is to get a bad description of the expected
| audience? (size, age, math level, ...)_
|
| Rare. People are asking me to accomplish a task, and they know
| that if I'm mis-informed then it won't go as well as they'd
| like. I also make it clear that I'll work with pretty much any
| audience, at pretty much any level, so they don't need to lie
| to get me on site. The incentives are all in favour of accurate
| information.
|
| And that last comment is the key. Getting incentives aligned is
| the key to getting everyone working together effectively.
| Spending time and effort up front to get that alignment is
| crucial.
| throwaway378037 wrote:
| This was great to read. Building a sass company over the past 10
| years, nobody ever tells you how much of your life is going to be
| spent doing the payment dance with your customers.
|
| The only part that's missing from this lovely write-up is having
| to deal with multiple people or departments in the organisation
| which can multiply the time and energy involved, and of course
| having to sign "supplier terms and conditions" and things of that
| sort.
|
| Part of me enjoys the dance, it reminds me that there's a real
| person on the other end and I get to experience their systems and
| processes. But most of the time I find it a bore
| wdb wrote:
| Getting purchase order is quite a pain when you work with one of
| the Big Four consulting companies. They give PO number and then
| when you issue your invoice on that they say it's incorrect, or
| say they decided the payment period is six months instead of your
| 14 days. It's a mess
| ColinWright wrote:
| Agreed. This submission was simply to show the flow. Making it
| work is the subject of many articles and books.
|
| Broadly, you need to assess where the risks are, and then put
| mitigations in place.
|
| You suspect they won't pay? Make sure the contract states
| explicitly the PO number, the payment schedule, and the penalty
| rates. If they don't pay have a clear path to small claims
| court (or equivalent), or other legal route. Balance that
| against against the possibility that you'll never get work from
| them again, and the time you will spend to pursue it. Factor
| those into the price you quote. Offer a discount for prompt
| payment.
|
| So there are processes to follow to reduce the problems. The
| main problem is that people assume all will be well, and have
| no way to deal with the issues that arise.
|
| Remember, in human terms, corporations are sociopaths. Defend
| yourself accordingly.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Units of US Federal government can also be "sociopathic"
| about payments, especially timescales for small, cash flow
| focused companies. One of those I worked for which did a fair
| amount of business with them in the 1990s found a discount
| for payment in 30 days worked wonders.
| ColinWright wrote:
| This is pretty high-level and simplistic, but a number of
| otherwise knowledgeable and experienced people have said: "Wow
| ... why have I never seen it explained like this?!?"
|
| So I thought I'd share it.
| mchusma wrote:
| Thanks! Good article. I didn't understand purchase orders in
| particular until deep into B2B stuff. It was just something I
| encountered until selling deals like $10k+. I still think they
| are a bit strange.
| ColinWright wrote:
| It helped me to think of them as a "Magic Token" that the
| Finance Department issues so they know that the invoice is
| genuine. It means that when the invoice arrives they can look
| up the appropriate file and check that the details before
| issuing the payment.
|
| A busy Finance Department needs some way to cross-reference
| incoming invoices against previously issued permissions.
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(page generated 2022-02-04 23:02 UTC)