Not paid fee as agreed but don't want to lose future work

rosie383

I did some proofreading work over the summer at an agreed price (giving a very good rate) and duly invoiced the client. Once the payment came through into my account it was less than expected. They had paid me in Euros rather than GBP so it was a few hundred less than it should have been. I contacted the client who is abroad and she has emailed back to say that when I did give the quote and subsequently the invoice, that she genuinely didn't notice that it should have been pounds and that this is more than she had budgeted for.
My dilemma is that she has already sent other work my way, she has a lot of contacts including an organisation which has a publishing company, and in previous correspondence has stated that she is looking forward to working with me again. I am at the stage where I really need to bring more work in and genuinely believe that this is an honest mistake,and that I would get future work through her and the organisation.
I don't want to seem unprofessional or a pushover and with the hope of getting recommendations for work I would be prepared to write off some of the shortfall but how do I put it?
In my mind I want to say that for every client that she sends my way I would reduce the debt by £50 for example. Is this mad? I don't want to cut my nose off to spite my face.
And for those pedants among you, I am writing this on my phone with a small screen, so the odd spelling mistake may go unnoticed and should not be a reflection on my proofreading ability!

culpepper

Perhaps you could let her know that you will keep your 'special rate' for a defined amount of time but just for her because she is so good as to pass other work your way so often..
I know it would mean working at a reduced rate when you get work from her for that time period but if she is passing on your details as much as you say, then she is saving you a lot in advertising costs and you can use her loyalty to build up your client base.

asajj

You could call it as a referral fee - nothing unprofessional about this. Tell that you have a good relationship with her and like working with her however at the end it is your job, so you come up with this solution.

rosie383

Very good suggestions here. Thank you. Referral fee sounds good. I really just couldn't think of a way to say what I wanted to. A lot of proofreading work comes via word of mouth unless you are part of a large organisation so anything which helps with that is valuable.

lisa110rry

What kind of proofreading do you do Rosie? Among my responsibilities with my company, I must review documents for Adjudications, Arbitrations, construction claims, etc. I review for spelling and grammar and cross-referencing citations, etc. - and as a sense check. A particular issue in our company is that because a document may go through several hands, one person may consider the Parties to be singular and another may consider the Parties to be plural - and in either case they may get the number of a pronoun wrong. I enjoy doing this part of my job very much. I've often thought I should start a company offering such services, how long have you been doing this?

Regards, L

rosie383

Hi Lisa
It is mainly academic proofreading that I have done along with a few books. Businesses tend to use their own staff or outsource to a large proofreading firm. I was proofreading for friends over the past few years but my sister started sending clients my way about a year ago. She is a proofreader along with other jobs and sometimes she didn't have time for the work.
It is quite difficult to get work but I am confident enough now to look for more work. As with most businesses it can take time to get established and I am still at a very early stage. I just took receipt of some new business cards today (woohoo!) and have recently got some good contacts in the local uni so will be gettin them out there hopefully.
If you want to do something like proofreading as a business, don't expect much to begin with but I think it is doable if you can get the contacts.

If it is something you enjoy then it is definitely worth looking at. Learn a wee bit before you start though so that you don't waste your own time. Have a look at some publishers' house styles and it will give you a much better idea of what is involved ... You would be amazed at what you wouldn't think of! Try the OUP house style for instance.

pelirocco

You will need to write it off to experience , you will come across as unprofessional if you start to quibble over it now . In future you need terms and conditions that the customer should ideally sign , and a proper quoting system that clearly lays out what you are quoting for and in what currency you wish to paid , ( and terms of payment ) and then get the customer to sign an acceptance .

rosie383

pelirocco wrote: »

You will need to write it off to experience , you will come across as unprofessional if you start to quibble over it now . In future you need terms and conditions that the customer should ideally sign , and a proper quoting system that clearly lays out what you are quoting for and in what currency you wish to paid , ( and terms of payment ) and then get the customer to sign an acceptance .

That is very good advice, thank you. I will definitely do that. Is there any site which would have simple contract templates? I have had students from other countries before and have never had this problem, but I agree, it is something to put down to experience and learn from.
Interesting though that you feel it would come across as unprofessional to quibble over it at this stage. Others have said the opposite, that it may seem unprofessional if I just say 'That's fine, don't pay the agreed fee.' There is definitely a balance to be found.

I did email her back and took the advice above, saying that I would regard it as a reduced rate and as referral fee for her sending other clients to me in the future. She is a PhD student at a German university where their dissertations are submitted in English and I have done work for another student from there in the past. She is also part of an organisation which do a lot of conflict and resolution work and have many books and articles published. They have a lot of professors who write articles for them. I am hoping that I get more work from them which is why I am prepared to give up what is essentially a third of the fee this time.

kazwookie

I would make sure as has already been stated, when you quote for you, you clearly state terms of payments ie GBP£ and with in (x) days.

Voyager2002

kazwookie wrote: »

I would make sure as has already been stated, when you quote for you, you clearly state terms of payments ie GBP£ and with in (x) days.

Yes. I would suggest, however, that if you are doing business with students in Germany you should quote in Euro. Consider opening a Euro bank account to make payment easy and minimise losses arising from currency conversion.

rosie383

That's a good idea about a Euro bank account. And in future I think I will quote in euros if it is a student from there.
I got an email back from my client and I can almost feel the relief coming from it. She says she definitely wants to work with me again and will be telling all her fellow students and colleagues so hopefully it will pay for itself.

Thanks to advice given here, I made sure to tell her that hers was a special rate and would apply in future if she generates some more clients for me. I don't want them all to think that I am too cheap!