Do you include in your contract a past due fee if your clients are late paying for the work? I give my clients 3 days to pay and I haven't added a late fee, but I've considered it before. I think 10% added on would be acceptable.
Three days late for 10% is a little stiff, especially if you interacted with them and hit it off. This might turn them off from ever using you again. You have to realize that life happens. If they were supposed to pay on Thursday, but something came up Friday where they had to leave for the weekend, they would be late on Monday. And as life was already unfair to them from Friday, you just put more on their plate.
I would say, if you are going to charge a late fee, to start tracking from the 3rd-day after the payment was supposed to be made and give them 14 days before going to that extreme as most people are paid biweekly. That should give them sufficient time to pay the full amount. If it's still not paid by the 30th day, tack on the 10%-15%, as at that point, you probably don't want to work with them again anyway, and hope they come through.
I haven't had a situation where anyone I paid for a service was late, and as long as they have a reasonable reason I wouldn't charge them/ask for a cheaper price.
Same here. Turns out, they had to go to the hospital. They completed about 1/2 of the work before going, but I still gave them the full amount as opposed to pro-rating it in the promise that they would catch up the following week for the next week's payment. So far, they look to hit that objective. Had I prorated it, they might not've wanted to continue, and I would have lost a good person. I know medical bills can be high, so I decided against prorating it as they might've needed the cash, and offered for them to just try and catch up.
