In a translator’s work, there are often situations where payment for services rendered is significantly delayed. What should you do in that case? How do you solve this problem? Find out what payment ethics is and how it works in the translation industry!
The financial situation of a translator
It’s no secret that the volume of work a translator receives depends both on their skills and on their rates. When translating documents or other materials for external companies, you can work directly with a client or with a translation agency as a translator. There is no silver bullet for maintaining your financial stability and only choosing clients for whom payment ethics is extremely important. Very often the situation of translators in the labour market is a constant struggle to get overdue payments. Because of these delays, translators must always keep funds in their accounts to be able to cover all the costs of running their business.
Clients very often apply:
• conditional payment (the fee is paid only after the client pays them),
• pyramid-scheme payment (smaller payments are made first).
In addition, a common practice is unfortunately avoiding contact with the translator, or citing a missing (or incorrectly issued) invoice or the accountant being unavailable.
Delayed payment for an order – how to deal with it?
There are several solutions that can help your payments for services rendered arrive faster. It’s worth getting familiar with them so you can emerge victorious from almost any difficult situation.
Sometimes fighting a large client, or even another translation agency, requires not just the right financial resources but also enough inner strength. What should you do? How can you protect yourself?
First and foremost, make sure the contract with the client is in paper form. This gives you, as the contractor, full rights and also a basis for pursuing your payment even in court. If the contract wasn’t concluded on paper, it’s a good idea to gather all available evidence (e.g. emails) proving that the cooperation was agreed.
If payment for a completed order is being delayed, a reasonable solution is to use the services of a professional debt collection company. How does such a company work? It contacts your client and, on your behalf, demands payment of the overdue fee. This makes attempting to recover your funds easier. Unfortunately, sometimes a dispute with a client ends up in court. This is an effective, though radical, step that will allow you to recover your overdue payment.
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