Business
Five Ways Small Businesses Typically Taking Payments: 1. Hourly Payment - Most common along virtual assistants, coaches, consultants. If you have a no cancelation policy, you are better off charging a package price so you are still compensated for any hours you miss due to the client's no-show 2. Monthly - Conover with coaches, VAs, and even wedding planners. Monthly payments can be on a schedule, for example for a wedding planner let's say it's $12,000 you can say it's $1,000 a month that way if there is a cancelation you've still been paid for the months of work you did leading up to the event. 3. Flat fee per project - Common for graphic designers, web designers, creators who sell physical or digital goods. When you offer a flat fee per project you can split the payments into all the payment up-front, half up-front half after, or all after (which is not recommended). 4. Flat fee Retainer - Getting a deposit to guarantee a project and then taking the rest in installments 5. Percentage Retainer - Let's say your package is $4,000 and your retainer is $1000 you could say in your contract "Client agrees to pay a retainer equal to 25% of the full contract price in exchange for photographer holding the date for the client." I encourage people to use the percentage method so you don't have to edit numbers in your contract. You also need to consider that your cancelaron/refund provisions will be based on your payment method. Go through your contact and take a moment to review all the contract provisions that are impacted by payment terms such as your cash flow.