{"course":{"slug":"independent-creative","title":"Working for Yourself","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative","level":"intermediate","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"getting-paid","title":"The deposit is the only real protection you have","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/getting-paid","position":38,"of":84,"minutes":10,"answer":"You cannot enforce payment legally, so structure the work so you are never far ahead of the money, and never release source files before the final payment lands.","keyIdea":"You cannot enforce payment legally, so structure the work so you are never far ahead of the money, and never release source files before the final payment lands."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Why sequence is your only leverage\n\nAn unknown freelancer cannot realistically sue anyone, and certainly not across a border. Legal costs exceed the invoice, jurisdiction is unclear, and the process takes longer than the client will exist.\n\nSo enforcement is not legal. It is structural: **do the work in an order where you are never far ahead of the money.**\n\nThat is what a deposit is. Not a sign of distrust, not a formality: the only mechanism you have.\n\n- 50 percent up front for a new client, balance on delivery.\n- Or 30 / 40 / 30 across milestones for anything longer than a month.\n- Non-refundable, and work begins on receipt, not on the promise of receipt.\n\nA client who negotiates hard about paying anything up front is telling you how the final payment conversation will go. Believe them the first time.\n\n## The invoice itself\n\nPut on it: a unique invoice number, the date, your name and address, their **legal entity name**, a plain description of what was delivered, the currency, the total, payment terms, your bank or payment details, and any tax identifier your country requires.\n\nPayment terms: net 15 for small clients. Large companies run on net 30 to 60 and their finance system will not bend for you, so quote knowing you are financing them for two months.\n\nSend it to the person who pays, not only the person you spoke to. And ask early, at the start of the project: *\"Who should invoices go to, and do you need a purchase order number on them?\"* A missing PO number is the single most common invisible reason a correct invoice sits untouched for a month: nobody rejects it, it never enters the system.\n\nFree tools for this: Wave, the free tier of Invoice Ninja, a Google Docs or LibreOffice template. On a phone, a document template exported to PDF is entirely sufficient. Nobody has ever awarded a project for invoice design.\n\n## The follow-up ladder\n\nEscalate on a schedule, so you never have to decide in the moment whether today is the day.\n\n- **Day after due.** Short, friendly, resend the PDF. Assume it was missed, because usually it was.\n- **Day 7.** Reply on the same thread, copy the person who signed the agreement.\n- **Day 14.** Telephone. Voice moves invoices in a way email does not, because it makes the delay a person's problem rather than an item in a queue.\n- **Day 21.** State the consequence plainly: work paused, late fee applies from the date in the agreement.\n\nKeep the tone flat and professional the entire way down. Not because rudeness is wrong, but because you want the money and possibly the referral, and anger produces neither. Write the furious version if it helps. Send the boring one.\n\n## Getting money across a border\n\nTransfer costs are not a rounding error.\n\nRoughly, as of 2026, and worth checking before you quote:\n\n- **PayPal** cross-border: a percentage fee plus a currency conversion spread. Together these have commonly landed somewhere around 5 to 8 percent of the invoice.\n- **Wise**: a small percentage on the mid-market rate, frequently under 1 percent.\n- **Payoneer**: broadly 1 to 2 percent plus its own conversion.\n- **A SWIFT bank wire**: flat fees at both ends plus intermediary bank deductions. Sensible for 5,000 dollars, terrible for 200.\n\nOn a 1,000 dollar invoice, that is the difference between losing 10 and losing 80. Over a year it is a month's income.\n\nThree things to settle in writing before the first invoice:\n\n1. **Who bears the transfer charge.** Either \"all bank and transfer charges are payable by the client\" or you price them in. Silence means you pay.\n2. **The currency.** Name it on the invoice. If you quote in a foreign currency and are paid 45 days later, you are carrying the exchange risk for six weeks.\n3. **Your documentation.** Many countries require you to evidence where foreign income came from. In India that is the foreign inward remittance advice or certificate, issued by your bank or payment provider. Collect these as payments arrive, not in March while reconstructing a year.\n\nOn tax, only the shape: many countries treat services sold abroad differently from services sold at home, and several require you to make a filing *before* you start invoicing that way rather than after. Getting that sequence wrong is expensive and completely avoidable. An accountant for one hour is cheaper than the penalty, and that is as far as this course goes: the specifics are your country's and a professional's.\n\n## Two rules that prevent most losses\n\n**Never hand over final source files before final payment.** Watermarked proofs, low resolution, a flattened preview: whatever lets them approve without being able to publish.\n\n**Never take on a client who fought you about the deposit.** The information was free and it arrived early."},"check":{"question":"A freelancer quotes 1,000 dollars, agrees no terms about charges, and is paid via PayPal. Roughly 930 arrives. The client insists they sent the full amount. Who is most likely right, and what should have happened?","options":[{"text":"The client is right that they sent 1,000; cross-border fees and the conversion spread took the rest, and who bears them should have been agreed in writing before invoicing.","correct":true},{"text":"The client has short-paid the invoice by 70 dollars and should be chased through the normal follow-up ladder.","correct":false,"tempting":"Reads a fee deduction as a payment dispute, and escalates against a client who did nothing wrong."},{"text":"PayPal has withheld the amount pending review and it will be released once the account is verified.","correct":false,"tempting":"Mistakes a routine fee and currency spread for a hold, which delays discovering the real cost."},{"text":"The shortfall is exchange-rate movement between invoice and payment, which neither side can control or allocate.","correct":false,"tempting":"Attributes a predictable, quotable cost to market randomness, so it never gets priced in."}]},"prev":{"slug":"discounts-and-what-they-buy","title":"What a discount tells a client","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/discounts-and-what-they-buy"},"next":{"slug":"the-invoice","title":"The document that has to survive an accounts system","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/the-invoice"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'The deposit is the only real protection you have', in Working for Yourself. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/independent-creative/getting-paid (Accessed: 31 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"The deposit is the only real protection you have","courseTitle":"Working for Yourself","module":{"index":4,"slug":"the-money","title":"The money"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"You cannot enforce payment legally, so structure the work so you are never far ahead of the money, and never release source files before the final payment lands.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"why-sequence-is-your-only-leverage","runs":[{"text":"Why sequence is your only leverage"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"An unknown freelancer cannot realistically sue anyone, and certainly not across a border. Legal costs exceed the invoice, jurisdiction is unclear, and the process takes longer than the client will exist."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"So enforcement is not legal. It is structural: "},{"text":"do the work in an order where you are never far ahead of the money.","b":true}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"That is what a deposit is. Not a sign of distrust, not a formality: the only mechanism you have."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"50 percent up front for a new client, balance on delivery."}],[{"text":"Or 30 / 40 / 30 across milestones for anything longer than a month."}],[{"text":"Non-refundable, and work begins on receipt, not on the promise of receipt."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A client who negotiates hard about paying anything up front is telling you how the final payment conversation will go. Believe them the first time."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-invoice-itself","runs":[{"text":"The invoice itself"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Put on it: a unique invoice number, the date, your name and address, their "},{"text":"legal entity name","b":true},{"text":", a plain description of what was delivered, the currency, the total, payment terms, your bank or payment details, and any tax identifier your country requires."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Payment terms: net 15 for small clients. Large companies run on net 30 to 60 and their finance system will not bend for you, so quote knowing you are financing them for two months."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Send it to the person who pays, not only the person you spoke to. And ask early, at the start of the project: "},{"text":"”Who should invoices go to, and do you need a purchase order number on them?”","i":true},{"text":" A missing PO number is the single most common invisible reason a correct invoice sits untouched for a month: nobody rejects it, it never enters the system."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Free tools for this: Wave, the free tier of Invoice Ninja, a Google Docs or LibreOffice template. On a phone, a document template exported to PDF is entirely sufficient. Nobody has ever awarded a project for invoice design."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-follow-up-ladder","runs":[{"text":"The follow-up ladder"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Escalate on a schedule, so you never have to decide in the moment whether today is the day."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Day after due.","b":true},{"text":" Short, friendly, resend the PDF. Assume it was missed, because usually it was."}],[{"text":"Day 7.","b":true},{"text":" Reply on the same thread, copy the person who signed the agreement."}],[{"text":"Day 14.","b":true},{"text":" Telephone. Voice moves invoices in a way email does not, because it makes the delay a person’s problem rather than an item in a queue."}],[{"text":"Day 21.","b":true},{"text":" State the consequence plainly: work paused, late fee applies from the date in the agreement."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Keep the tone flat and professional the entire way down. Not because rudeness is wrong, but because you want the money and possibly the referral, and anger produces neither. Write the furious version if it helps. 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