I suggest making up an invoice (or amending your current invoice) and mailing it to them, attention Accounts Payable, and putting a "please remit within 30 days to avoid late fee" note on the bottom. Then, state the late fee (10% after 30 days, 15% after 60 days, etc.) As a courtesy you may want to phone your aunt and let her know you have mailed the invoice. Even if it is a 2-person company, I would still send them invoices until they pay the final fee.

any possibility they were under the impression that you were accepting 60% of the cost as a "buyout", considering they decided not to continue with the project?

to be fair, it may not necessarily appropriate to expect 100% payment if you didn't go past a final set of comps. maybe 60% isn't a reasonable expectation, but 100% for a job not completed may not be fair, either.

in the end, this is the reason you have written contracts. they spell out how things like this will be handled. it sets out expectations, including how promptly you expect payment, what late fees will be, etc.

if you think it's reasonable to expect full payment (i'm not saying you don't, above, just throwing out some general thoughts), then wassy is right. send invoices. you're probably not helped by not having sent them earlier with late fees listed on them, but you can start sending them now with a note explaining that you feel as if you've been patient in waiting for your final payment, but you feel it's time for them to meet their obligation. give them the net 30 notice on there.

personally i think wassy's late fees are quite high. generally late fees tend to run 15-20% per *year,* not per month. my late fees are calculated at 1.5% per month, which works out to 18% per year.

in the end, hopefully this is a lesson about *always* working with a contract. start with one of the standard contracts out there and modify it to fit your personal circumstances. i found the aiga standard contract to be a good starting point.

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/content.cfm/standard-agreement

ALWAYS use a contract. If they agreed to 100% payment in writing and you finished the job, they darn well better pay you. But if you didn't finish the job and got paid for your work completed (60%) then you are paid in full.

You might want to add a "Kill Fee" to your contracts to handle these situations.

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Powerpoint is not a design application

You're lucky you got 60%! In my experience they would not have paid you THAT and then a few months later ASKED for more changes! I think 'late fees' are a waste of time. Has anybody ever gotten anyone to pay the balance AND late fees? I would be interested to know. Where I come from its hard to get them to pay a the fee on TIME, much less expect them to pay a late fee.

Any thoughts? Nato what's your take on this?

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

even if you don't get late fees, you can use the concept of "giving them up" as part of the negotiations. so if they pay you in full, you're still "giving" when you don't charge them the fees.

and no, i've never collected them.

This is why contracts have a "kill clause," specifying what you are due in the event a job is "killed" at any one of various identifiable phases. But since you didn't have a contract at all, I think you'll have to accept the 60%. It seems pretty clear to me that your aunt expected you to understand that would be payment in full for a truncated job. Sorry, buddy.

Mara

Yeah, I've learned from this experience to never work with family or anyone close again.

I'm gonna talk to my aunt and ask her about the "buyout" issue and see if that's what she was implying. She never made that clear to me if that was the case. But anyways, she is an easy person to talk to so I'll talk to her.

I appreciate all of the input.

-Adrian