Getting
Paid for the Gig
by: Peter Drew
You’ve launched your voice-over business. You market
your demo. You network. You audition. You get gigs. Now
all you have to do is get paid.
Union or Non-Union?
For AFTRA and/or SAG
union talent, getting paid in a timely fashion is a
benefit of union membership. It’s built into the union
contract. Union talents fill out a form at the session
and then submit it to a paymaster (someone contracted
with the union to handle talent payroll). The paymaster
ensures that the talent is paid within a time period
specified by the union contract.
Non-union talent and
financial core talent doing non-union work are totally
responsible for collecting what’s owed to them.
Financial core, if you aren’t familiar with the term,
refers to less than full union membership. Financial
core union members have paid the portion of dues and
fees dedicated strictly to collective bargaining,
excluding any activity not directly related to
collective bargaining. You might call it “union lite.”
Financial core members do not have voting rights and
cannot hold elective office in the union, but they also
do not have to abide by union rules and regulations.
Types of Clients
So, what payment policy
should you, the non-union talent, adopt? Just as the
Internet has changed the voice-over business by making
the home voiceover studio possible, the Internet has
changed collection by making it possible to take payment
electronically. PayPal is just one of a number of the
online options that make requesting immediate payment
possible, instead of sending a paper invoice through the
postal system and then waiting for a paper check to be
sent to you. But before discussing methods of accepting
payment, let’s look at the various types of clients out
there and the payment policy that may best apply to each
one.
Most businesses base
their payment policies on assessment of risk. Assessing
the risk you take with a client usually is a matter of
simple common sense. If an individual contacts you
through your web site and asks you to narrate a wedding
video or tribute to a deceased relative, then probably
it would be wise to request payment up front before
delivering the voice over. If the individual balks at
paying up front, then you can agree to voice the script,
play the voice-over down the phone line to prove you did
it, get paid, and then deliver the voiceover.
Working with ad agencies
and production houses usually means giving up a little
control of payment terms. You can request payment up
front, but most ad agencies and production houses expect
to be invoiced. You can put “due on receipt” on the
invoice, but that is often interpreted as “30 days net.”
There are some excellent ad agencies and production
houses out there that pay promptly, but very often you
will have to wait 30 days or more for payment. Be aware:
many smaller ad agencies and production houses have
adopted a policy of not paying you until they get paid.
In the ad biz, this means you can wait a long time for
payment.
(On a personal note,
after waiting a year for payment from a small agency for
a VO I’d done for a local electronics and appliance
retailer, I finally reached an agreement to accept a
color television in lieu of cash. A couple of months
later, the retailer went out of business, a victim of
serious negative cash flow! Did the ad agency ever get
paid? Good question.)
Doing voice work
directly for mid-sized to large corporations usually
means having to bill on a 30-day net basis. This means,
in essence, that you end up offering 30 days credit
interest-free. The good thing is the risk of not getting
paid is usually low. Will some companies push payment
out 60 days and even further? Yes, but again you’ll
eventually get paid.
Payment Options
So, let’s go through the
individual types of clients and your payment options.
For individuals, request
immediate payment. As described above, play the
completed voiceover down the phone to prove it was done
and then ask for payment. Once payment is made, deliver
the voice over.
For direct work with
larger companies, ad agencies, and production houses,
request immediate payment upon receipt of invoice. If
they say their policy is 30 days, try for 15. For
long-form voiceovers involving many pages and a large
talent fee, try requesting 50 percent up front and 50
percent upon delivery of the project.
Remember everything is
negotiable. You can even barter for part of your fee.
Remember how I received a TV in lieu of cash? Of course,
keep track of your receivables (what’s owed you). When a
client does not pay by the due date, send a statement.
Make a polite but firm phone call requesting payment. Be
proactive. Most people pay their bills. But for many
clients your invoice will not be top of the pile, so to
speak.
Payment via the ‘Net
Now, back to collecting
via the ‘Net. Paypal is a very popular site for
collecting or sending payments. Just visit
www.paypal.com and sign up. Clients can pay by
credit card or through electronic transfer from a
checking account. You’ll receive an email telling you
when the transfer of funds has occurred. This makes it
perfect for collecting an up front payment. As soon as
you receive the email, you can deliver the voiceover.
www.worldpay.com and
www.verisign.com are two other online payment
processors you can check out, too.
Want to take credit
cards? You’ll have to open a merchant account in order
to accept them. It will cost you a fee to open the
account, a monthly fee, a fee for each transaction, and
a percentage of each sale. Do an online search for
credit card merchant accounts and compare costs and
services to get the best deal.
Direct wire transfer is
a third electronic payment option. Set up a checking
account used exclusively for wire transfers. You supply
the client with your checking account number and the
banks routing number, and the client transfers funds
directly from his account to yours. It works well and
can cost virtually nothing depending on the deal on the
account you get from your bank. One of my TV imaging
clients pays by wire transfer. I email an invoice out of
my QuickBooks and usually the next day the money is in
my account!
With a payment policy in
place, you’ll gain greater control over how and when you
get paid. Hey, it might be a really fun business, but
it’s no fun not getting paid.
Happy collecting!
© Peter Drew
