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Payment before versus after service delivery
For several years I’ve worked as an independent providing specialized treatment of text and data as an email-based service. I’ve adopted a pay-later policy by sending the invoice with the finished product, and it has worked great because I’ve been dealing with well-established entities mostly in Belgium. With more time on my hands now, I’ve been prepare to expand to private individuals as well in different countries. I think it would be foolhardy to continue with the same payment strategy. On the other hand, we buy things on the internet by advance payment, yet I feel that asking for payment up front by bank transfer for a purchase that is negotiated and delivered by email days later might be seen as foolhardy by potential clients. Will providing payment by Paypal, credit cards and Bancontact instill confidence? Do you have any suggestions for a good payment strategy?
Ask your bank manager what advice they can offer.
You can set up immediate transfer from one smartphone to another. Check your banking app.
There's no hard and fast rule but we have always paid for loads of things in advance and accepted it without question.
Book a flight; a rail ticket (a season ticket is paid for months ahead of last use); go to the theatre or a concert and so on. And there are many more situations where a deposit is standard.
Certainly I would expect to pay something up from if I was buying for another country. Surely it's better to risk losing a potential client that to risk losing payment from someone whom you have little chance of a tracking down if they default.
Remember that you are going to have to supply a TVA invoice, at least in respect of customers in Belgium (and possibly elsewhere in the EU). Have you asked your accountant what he/she advises?
It may be that asking for, say, a 40% (or a flat amount) prepayment payable by bank transfer provides a solution, the prepayment being non-returnable unless you were unable to undertake the task within an agreed time-margin.
Second Becasse's suggestion.
For any company, I would do a cross check before working in the European VAT number validation database
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/
or for Belgian companies I ask my accountant to look deeper into company files they have access to - and than decide which way to go.
For private clients - an % advanced (net) payment sounds fine.
Good luck, xl
socrate - to actually answer your question, there is nothing wrong whatsoever in asking for pre payment before starting work. Consumers (particularly retail, which you appear to be planning to target) are well used to buying that way. The easiest and most efficient way to accept payments is via credit card, so just set up a paypal account, or there are many other payment processors that you can use.
I use https://stripe.com/be
