The thing is the people who sign the contract aren't often working in the Accounting department and don't have a clue.
I've been consulting for over 10 years and have never not been paid. First, I don't take on every prospect who offers me a project, secondly, I don't overreact on late payments because I don't live "paycheck to paycheck".
On longer projects, I always state up front that I'll just stop work if an invoice is overdue by 60 days. I don't ask for deposits or make counterproductive late penalty threats. But the main reason why I get always paid is that all my customers need to pass my smell test. You can usually tell a nickel and dimer from the first meeting if you know what to ask and look for.
From what I've seen, the people who have the biggest issue with late payments are those who live hand-to-mouth. I've always told new contractors to make sure they have 3 months or more of living expenses before they even start contracting to accommodate payment cycles or interruptions.
--edit-- Hand-to-mouth is the worst situation for a contractor, because they're going to take on whatever projects are dangled in front of them, because of the urgency to pay the bils. When you do that, you end up with the customers with the worst payment records.
Some of it is gut feel. If a person's first impression on me is that they're a douchebag, they get an instant "thanks but no thanks".
But there are some more concrete clues. If they ask for bulk discounts on hours, if they ask to negotiate the rate up front, if they seem to talk "bigger" than they need to, if they think the work you do is "easy", if they act like they're doing you a favor by offering you a chance to bid on the business, etc., those are hints that money will be an issue or that they don't really value your services.
I never, ever, deal with small local businesses - i.e., those that don't seem to have owners with corporate backgrounds. Smaller business owners tend to not be accustomed to throwing around >$100/h for services. I'm generalizing, but if they're paying their staff $10/h, they expect 10 times the output for $100/h. IMO, those guys are trouble, run, run, run away if you can, because you'll get nickeled and dimed out the wazoo.
I've been consulting for over 10 years and have never not been paid. First, I don't take on every prospect who offers me a project, secondly, I don't overreact on late payments because I don't live "paycheck to paycheck".
On longer projects, I always state up front that I'll just stop work if an invoice is overdue by 60 days. I don't ask for deposits or make counterproductive late penalty threats. But the main reason why I get always paid is that all my customers need to pass my smell test. You can usually tell a nickel and dimer from the first meeting if you know what to ask and look for.
From what I've seen, the people who have the biggest issue with late payments are those who live hand-to-mouth. I've always told new contractors to make sure they have 3 months or more of living expenses before they even start contracting to accommodate payment cycles or interruptions.
--edit-- Hand-to-mouth is the worst situation for a contractor, because they're going to take on whatever projects are dangled in front of them, because of the urgency to pay the bils. When you do that, you end up with the customers with the worst payment records.