Comment by bruce511

What you're hinting at here is risk. If you work, deliver, then invoice then you are assuming all the risk.

If you demand 100% up front, then they assume all thd risk.

If you do deposits and partial payments and so on then you share the risk.

Naturally you want to take no risk. Your customer wants to take no risk. It sounds like the original poster here is taking all the risk.

So to the OP I say, treat the money lost as an education. I spent 7 months chasing a tiny amount of money early in my career. It taught me the value of risk.

Lots of companies don't pay invoices on receipt. 90 days is really common. So all is not lost. But the important thing is to understand where you went wrong. Work out the value of the risk, and include it in your price.

I usually specify payment terms when quoting. Changing the payment terms changes the quote.