Do you provide services where labour is involved? Have you ever thought about asking for a deposit before you commence work? It is a pretty common practice now for businesses to ask for deposits before work commences. In some instances businesses can ask for a deposit of up to 75%. Other businesses ask for progress payments. This is a really great practice if you can achieve it, because a customer paying a deposit is a qualifier. They have skin in the game, so you would expect that they will see it through and make payment for the full project in the end. Another good practice is to be able to get progress payments and then withhold the final part of the project from the customer until the balance is paid in full. This works in industries like web development, residential housing, wood working, valuations, and consulting just to name a few. However, that only works for some industries. What if the industry you work in just does not allow you to ask for deposits? I know that in the building industry subcontractors are not usually able to ask for deposits, so what can you do if you can’t ask for a deposit? Invoice frequently, and chase your invoices regularly. I would suggest if you are a subcontractor, and it is a long project, you should invoice at least weekly. Before you commence work have a word with the builder and ask him if it is possible to get paid weekly, and follow that conversation up with an email saying “Hi Bob, just following up on our earlier discussion of today. We agreed that I would invoice you weekly for my time and that you would have your accounts pay me within 7 days of invoice. Thanks for that, really appreciate it”. Be mindful and aware that building projects notoriously go over time and over budget. So, if your builder says it is not possible to be paid weekly if you hand in a $30,000 invoice at the end of six week’s work, if the builder is running low on funds don’t expect to be paid in a hurry. If you are invoicing $5,000.00 at the end of each week and the builder isn’t paying you, then you can limit your exposure by saying to the builder that if he doesn’t pay your invoices then you’ll have to stop work. If you do great work, then the builder should come to the party and pay your outstanding invoices. That way he can get you back to finish the rest of the job.