I have my first client and have started work. It's amazing how many questions are coming up and changes I need to make now I'm actually working! One of my biggest questions is about invoices and when to send them out.

My client is paying me hourly and my contract currently states I'll send out invoices monthly with payment due within 5 business days. In retrospect I am wondering if I shouldn't invoice clients paying hourly weekly or bi-weekly, especially if I am doing a lot of work for them. What do you guys do?

Many thanks
Joanne

Hi Jo, I am new to the forum and haven't sought clients virtually, yet. I stumbled on this forum in my research of the virtual market.

In answer to your question, I am not sure how others may handle your situation with virtual clients but in the old school ways of seeing your client, etc..., what I would consider is who the client is and how well you know them. If this is a new relationship you are building and have no knowledge regarding the reputation of the client and their integrity of paying their bills timely, I would bill as you go. If you are putting in a lot of hours, don't let it go too long before you send them a bill. I would hate to see you find yourself in a position where you can't collect because the client is sticker shocked when the monthly bill comes and they didn't realize how quickly your fees could add up.

It really could depend on the situation and you have to use your gut instinct as each client is OH soooo different. One thing my attorney friends have drilled into me is the importance of "retainers". Trust me, I find myself much like you....with tons of questions and trying to weed through the answers to the best of my ability. At the end of the day, you are your own best judge. What ever you do, don't let anyone (client or not) make you feel as though you don't deserve to be paid adequately and timely. Some clients are really good and then you will always have those that try to take advantage of you. You know, those that would never allow someone else to run their business as they try to run others.

I am interested in what others think to! No matter how long you have been doing something, there is always room to learn and grow. I am glad I found this forum!
Good Luck

Hi Joanne,

I bill my clients bi-weekly in advance, payable at the end of the two week period.

Good luck to you! I'm new to this as well, and have as many questions as I'm sure you do.

Joan

I have a few clients that I have been working with for a little while. I know that they are good clients and I can be sure to be paid on time. I send out invoices on the 1st and the 15th of each month for hours worked. Payment due in 14 days. This system has worked well for me. My clients seem to appreciate paying twice a month so their bill isn't massive at the end of the month.

__________________
Pam
www.adminetcetera.com

Hi Joanne, you will probably go through a ton of changes as you get more comfortable and begin to shape your "business model." You may find that clients prefer once a month or you may feel that twice monthly is better for your cash flow - either way is fine - just do what works for your client and feels good for you.

__________________
Lisa Wells - VAs!! Go here to get Free VA Business Startup Kit and Forms Pack for your VA Biz

I was planning to collect payment up front via Paypal on my website. I would track my hours and keep in touch with the client about how many hours remain. Is that a bad idea?

I'm charging a flat rate per hour for all of my services and trying to keep things simple in general. I invoice my existing transcription clients who pay by check and it's time consuming. So I thought with my new VA biz, it was time for a change

Hi Erika, having the client pre-pay is totally fine and I did it that way for years. There are pros and cons to any model that you use and with "retainer pre-pay" which is a name I just made up - the problem I would run into time and time again was that the client was always concerned with "where are we on hours" "how much time did you spend on that" "I'll do it myself because I don't want this task to count towards my time" It's exhausting!

With transcription, can you just charge a flat rate per page? That way you're not having to track hours?

The way I have my biz set up now is that I have 3 levels of packages, each with a flat rate, and I don't hold to a specific time. Instead I average out the hours and this is based on my client's profile. For example, Client A makes about $xx per year, has a weekly newsletter, holds x number of events, does private coaching, has maybe 1-3 websites to manage, and sells info products. Based on my experience, she will average about 10 hours per month. I invoice at the beginning of the month and if she's under the 10 hours, she doesn't feel like she's losing any time. If she's over, she's not hit with a bill. But it averages out. This is a very simplistic explanation of the whole process and I teach 'how to create packages' but this just gives you an overall view of a different type of model that you can use.

__________________
Lisa Wells - VAs!! Go here to get Free VA Business Startup Kit and Forms Pack for your VA Biz

I invoice at the first of the month. Unless it is a one time project then I will invoice once it is completed. Also, I build websites so I will ask for a percentage up front. So with large projects you could state that you need a percentage up front to start the work and the remainder upon completion or the end/start of the month.

For new clients, I bill per transcript or weekly if the project lasts longer than a week. Established clients are given a choice of how often they want to be billed (up to 30 days). Some choose per transcript, some per project, and some are billed once a month. For established clients, full payment is due in 30 days.

Unless you have a different per-page rate for different types of transcription it's hard to bill per page because the quality of audio can vary greatly. If you have one client that always has great quality audio and always has the same type of transcription (just dictation or just two people, for example), then a per-page rate could work. I have one per-page transcription client and the rest are per transcription hour.

__________________
Pam Deyerle - Transcriptionist in Richmond, Virginia (Since September 1996 - 19 years)
The Perfect Word Transcription Service

Hi Linda S, I'm curious to hear more about having the client pay a % up front. I've heard that before. Do you do that with all clients? Interesting to think about when to employ this approach vs retainer approach. Good insights here everyone, thank you!

__________________
Joanne Macdonald
Marketing, Communications & Event Management https://twitter.com/jmacd

I plan on sending out invoices weekly, although I'm starting to think about bi-weekly as it could get time consuming. I haven't even launched so I don't even know if I'll have any clients. Lol.

I've a lot of post on here, and some of the other VAs invoice depending on the actual client.

__________________

Jmacd, I have offered retainers to my clients before but no one has accepted. By retainers, it will be a set of hours at a discounted rate. For my recurring clients, they prefer hourly. If I quote out a job, I will ask for 1/3 upfront, 1/3 during design approval and 1/3 at the end. For a few clients that are new or are not a referral, I might change the percentage to 50, 25, 25 respectively. Hope that helps.

Linda, I like your idea about the 1/3

For me it depends on the client. If it is someone I don't know and have not worked with before I have them pay me 50% up front or pay for an entire block of time upfront and we work off that.

I have 2 local clients that I bill monthly. I know them both and I do all sorts of odd jobs for them on a regular basis. For example I make up listings for a small real estate agency. They want them all uniform and some of the agents have few/crummy computer skills. So I do them. The agent sends me the info/pix and I put them together and send them back as a printable/emailable PDF.

It would be almost impossible to pay ahead of time for this as they don't know how many listings they have each month. And if an agent called and I said I'm not giving you the pdf until you pay me, I don't know that seems petty on my part. Again I know these people.

So I bill them both at the end of the month and they send money (one a check, one paypal) the next day. But I wouldn't do this if I didn't know both clients really well.

__________________
Susan Sheehan - VA Cape Cod
21 Steps to Better Networking

Like Joanne, I would also want to know about having the client pay a % up front.
I would imagine that the client has to have some level of trust in you to pay a % upfront. Most I have met want to pay you after the work is done.

Paula