[TYPO3-english] LATE / NO PAYMENTS - how to deal with it

[Andreas Becker]

>
> Hmm Ok it seems here is the right place to discuss it as nobody had a
> better idea WHERE to discuss this important Theme


As a developer we are sometimes facing the problem that customers are paying
there fees late or even that they are not paying at all.

In our Usergroup we had a discussion about this as it affects especially
smaller developers which can only handle client by client more or less than
bigger agencies which have employees and can "substitude" a non or late
payed periode with other client works.

What are your experiences with it and how do you deal with it?

We discovered also that US clients seem to be best payers at all as many in
our group had similar experiences. In Europe the moral of paying ontime
seems to be the weekest on the other side.

Does anyone have an idea why this is like this?

TYPO3 offers several ways to actually ensure to get your payment or the
customer don't get a site, but most likely already you have spent lots of
time and effort in it. Some agencies and also developers meanwhile work only
when they receive at least 50% prepayment, some even ask for 75% especially
for smaller projects. Only a few seem to use escrow or dealing with tools
like odesk, elance, and so on. They seem to be pretty expensive and not so
effective. Good critics came for freshbooks which quite a lot use for
timetrack and charge their clients.

What are your experiences with prepayments or time accounts (prepaid man
hours which customers can buy and than use)?
What are your experiences with Tools like Odesk, elance, ..., freshbooks?
Which tools are you using or do you recommend?

Some agencies are developing on their own server and the client gets his
site when it is finished. Others develop sites on live servers where the
client has also access and can actually see and even participate in the
developing process from the beginning. If these servers are belonging to the
client it is often quite difficult to secure his own work if the payment
does not proceed. On your own live servers you could i.e. deactivate any
import/export, functionality for the customer.

There are some extensions which enable you to host i.e. your TS on your
server - has anyone experiences with it? I guess it will slow down the site
loading a lot - on the other hand the customer would have the
blank skeleton with his content and you would have the blood to get the site
running ;-)

What are your suggestions? How do you ensure that your work stays your work
until it has been finished even on a live or often also on a shared host of
the customer?

There might be some more ideas out there which we would like to discuss and
perhaps think about developing some tools or ways how to improve it.

I am looking forward hearing from you!

Andi