• Enquiry
• Quote
• Agree
• Work
• Invoice
• Paid

Before the Work

Your leverage is highest before you start and lowest when you have finished. Almost every payment problem is a decision made in the second position and enforced from the first.

For a software-side reference alongside this discussion of pre-work decisions, contracts, and small-business administration, Monitask has this resource.

What decides whether you get paid — six decisions, taken in conversations nobody treats as commercial.

A quote that survives a dispute — the argument is never about the price, it is about what the description meant, and the exclusions paragraph is the most valuable and most often missing.

Scope and changes — scope creep is mostly a series of small accommodations by the supplier, each establishing a precedent nobody agreed to.

Deposits and staged payments — money before the work tests whether the customer can pay and whether they intend to, before you have bought anything.

Payment terms that mean something — terms first seen on an invoice were announced rather than agreed.

Checking who you are dealing with — ten minutes with the best ratio of effort to outcome on this site.

The email that becomes the contract — write the confirmation yourself, and invite correction, because that is what makes silence meaningful.

When to decline — a declined job is a visible loss and a bad job is an invisible one.

Site visits — photograph the damage that was already there, and never give a figure while standing in somebody's kitchen.

Materials, and who buys them — who supplies changes the cash flow, the margin and the liability.

Subcontractors and the chain — you are liable entirely and you owe them regardless of whether you have been paid.

What a written variation looks like — four lines, sent before the work, and record the reductions as carefully as the additions.

• Checking Who You Are Dealing With

  Ten minutes on a new customer, and what each check tells you. The one with the widest range of outcomes for the least effort.

• Deposits and Staged Payments

  Money before the work does two things, and the second one matters more than the cash. How much, when, and what to do about refusals.

• Materials, and Who Buys Them

  Who supplies the materials changes the margin, the risk and who is liable when something is wrong. Three arrangements compared.

• Payment Terms That Mean Something

  Terms first seen on the invoice were announced rather than agreed. What to state, where to state it, and what the defaults are.

• Scope and Changes

  Every job changes. Whether the changes are paid for is decided by what you say the first time somebody asks for something extra.

• Site Visits

  A visit prices the job and does three other things nobody counts. What to look at, what to record, and whether to charge.

• Subcontractors and the Chain

  Bringing somebody in makes you a customer as well as a supplier. What changes, and why paying them late costs more than it saves.

• The Email That Becomes the Contract

  Most small-firm agreements are an exchange of messages nobody thought of as legal. What to write so the exchange holds up.

• What Decides Whether You Get Paid

  Almost everything that determines payment is settled before the work starts. Six decisions, and when each one is made.

• When to Decline

  Some jobs cost more than they pay before anybody starts. Eight signals, and how to say no without burning the contact.

• A Quote That Survives a Dispute

  The price is the part everybody reads and the part that never causes the argument. Seven things a defensible quote contains.

• What a Written Variation Looks Like

  Four lines, sent before the work, that turn an extra into an agreed item. What each line does and where they go wrong.

For broader background on pre-work decisions, contracts, and small-business administration, see Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.