The joys of getting paid.

[BNVN]

Ok, think you have had problems with customers paying you?

I bet I got the slowest customer of all time here.

Here is the invoice and the check (with fraud and id theft stuff removed).

Please Note The Date's. The joys of freelancing, being your own boss, more like playing the super... "Just Give Me The Money..."

http://www.lightningboy.net/blog/images/CBS_Invoice_9207.jpg

http://www.lightningboy.net/blog/images/CBS_CHECK.jpg

[DanHostler1985]

CBS, of all clients

[backfocus5]

Oops, I'm sorry...I thought the thread was titled "The Joys Of Getting Laid!"

My Bad!

[dinosaur]

Believe it or not, it is actually easier and faster to get paid by CBS if you are a Sole Propreitorship. I just enter the charges for my gear on a CBS online expense report (TREX) and I get a check in two weeks. The same goes for my union labor time sheets. I e-mail my hours to Sandy in Washington and I receive a check the next pay period.

I've heard numerous nightmare stories from guys billing CBS as a corporate entity.
You are in that same boat because you're selling them stringer footage, and not working as a union freelance ENG crew. I know a company that just got a CBS check for Super Bowl. It took NINE MONTHS waiting for more than $15K.

Its not any better at NBC/GE which has 60-90 day payment policy. Fox is about the same.

ESPN is getting better. The trick is to put the day of the shoot as the invoice date, not the date you mail the invoice. Their payment clock starts ticking from the date on the invoice. So 30-45 days is common now.

[SimonW]

What you guys need is the equivalent of a Statutory Demand like we have in the UK. Send one of those to a company and you say jump and they say how high!

Basically a SD is an official demand for payment within 28 days, which, if not met means that a petition to wind up the non-paying company is made.

Also in the UK, by law, if a company takes too long to pay up then you are legally entitled to interest on top of the original payment (and if they refuse try the SD route).

[Dan R.]

Also in the UK, by law, if a company takes too long to pay up then you are legally entitled to interest on top of the original payment (and if they refuse try the SD route).

Would be nice to have that here, that's for sure. I charge a monthly late fee to cover my own credit card interest on a project cost, but I have yet to have a late client actually pay it. A law to back it up would be helpful.

[Sean-1966]

Any reason given for the late payment??

[Baltimore Shooter]

Would be nice to have that here, that's for sure. I charge a monthly late fee to cover my own credit card interest on a project cost, but I have yet to have a late client actually pay it. A law to back it up would be helpful.

Or you could report it to Dunn & Bradstreet. Sure, a big network like CBS, etc may not care in th elong run, but I'll bet that when a Payroll Manager gets a call from D&B, it won't make them too happy and they'll find the accounting person responsible and chew them out.

Warren

[DNVRSTRINGER]

My eyes popped out of my head when I noticed that it was shot in 2005. Thanks for the heads up!

[Baltimore Shooter]

And let me guess, they'll arrogantly claim "we don't pay late fees, even after 2 years".

Warren

[Stoney]

Two years! I thought it was this year. Man, that is nuts.

I have a few clients who are really bad at payroll. One is called something like, "See-enbee-see" ;-/ They are 4 months now. It's ridiculous the accounting procedures... at a financial news network, no less.

I have a few outstanding booking agency payments, too. One is three months. Not good. I am easy going but I am getting tired of the run-around!

My fiance's employer, an architect firm, has several clients not paying up on time. They actually had cash-flow issues this month and delayed employee payments. Her firm is a good place with good business practices... and they are feeling the pinch.

What the hell is going on with corporations? It is getting to be that I trust the individuals and small companies I work with more than the corporations. I haven't been delayed or stiffed by the little guys once....

[Baltimore Shooter]

Well, if we don't stand up for ourselves and draw the line, we'll continue to get walked over.

I can't believe the number of people who work in television that don't have enough balls to stand up for themselves. Bunch of Fu**ing pu**ys.

Warren

[Baltimore Shooter]

It shouldn't even be 90 days, and it wouldn't if we make IBEW enforce it.

Warren

[Hiding Under Here]

Warren, you have to read the thread again. people who work regularly for CBS, who are in the Trex system, get paid FASTER than just about anywhere else. It takes two weeks to gat paid from CBS if you are a freelancer -- for gear AND time.

The problem here was that the original poster was charging as a limited partnership with an invoice and NOT the way that the vast majority of freelancers invoice.

[Mike]

The invoice above is not for IBEW work, so they would have no say in the matter anyway.

BNVN, tell us the details surrounding this invoice. It obviously is for stringer video, but knowing what I do about how the networks pay (even for stringers), I can't help but notice that there is no clue as to who your contact at CBS was at the time of sale, what show it was for, etc. I also notice that there is no name on the "bill to" part of the invoice. My invoices have names on them, which is a result of me having an ongoing relationship with the client. I happen to know a lot about the stringer business and can tell you that it is often a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants process when the networks buy tape. Do you ask for any type of P.O. or e-mail acknowledgement that you can reference when sending your invoices?

Perhaps this invoice got lost in a shuffle because they had nowhere to direct it, as they might not have known what budget it would be billed to (because the invoice gives no clue as to what department or show bought the tape).

CBS is one my major clients (as a network daily hire shooter) and for the most part, I get paid in a timely and painless fashion--both for payroll and for gear rental invoices. I also know that I can e-mail or phone one person (the person who is on the "bill to" address of my invoices) and I can get the ball rolling on resolving any payment questions, so I can't help but wonder (in a non-adversarial manner) what all the details are surrounding your invoice and the late payment.

[BNVN]

Details: BNVN is a stringer operation, We have over 3 dozen active stringers working for us around the country to feed in footage to us to then turn around and feed off to the networks. The stringers could do it on their on but don't want to deal with the B.S. of dealing with all the networks when there in the middle of a story, they just want one place to call. It's kind of like what StormGod was trying to do except we have been doing it for years and flying under the radar.

Why they refused to pay for so long, I have no clue. I just kept emailing and snail mailing the invoices over the last 2 years and calling them and leaving voice mails.

Finally it moved up the chain of people that approved it for payment and over 2 years later, we got paid. Bottom line, the producers want the footage right now, but they really don't want to pay a lot for footage and when the invoices come in, they will get around to them, some day.

And yes, were freelance but were also an S-Corp so we have to invoice everything out business to business. But that should still not take any longer for any company to pay up. We finally have CNN on about a 45-60 day payment setup with direct deposit into our bank account. For a while CNN was 6 months out with paying us because someone messed up the video intake logs where we sold them 4 packages in one day last spring and they thought we were double billing them because the desk only had records of 2 packages.