For those that are concern about deposits on labor:
1. Why would you collect for something you didn't yet perform beyond the scheduling and resourcing scope?
2. You are billing correctly for research, design, engineering and inhouse equipment build/testing, right?

If setup properly, you should never be behind on labor, short of government jobs and larger builder or commercial jobs that routinely pay on a net 15,30,45 basis.

For you guys billing equipment and labor separate, do you find that clients then know exactly how it breaks down and price you out on equipment through amazon or wherever, and say your labor is too high and try to haggle?

I would think so, that's why I don't do it separate.

The entire pricing from amazon thing is its own subject. I'm not going to address it.

Another way to get immediate or prior payment for equipment is to take the idea of carrying stock and turn it on its head:


I use passive voice, saying "once payment has been received," rather than "once you pay us" (which means "once you fork over the dough") to say that they have to pay first without emphasizing that it's up to them to start the ball rolling with a check.

I generally don't include model numbers, but rather a generic description.

If I understood Zohan correctly, he's talking about the invoice; and Mr. Stanley is responding that the invoice he makes has no model numbers. For years, warranty status has been determined by the invoice date, plus model number and serial number on the invoice, so that won't work.

Mr. S, you do mean you do this on the estimate or quote, not on the invoice, right?

This is what I am afraid we are gonna have to do.

Been running into way too many deadbeats lately. Clients who will find anything and everything to get out of paying that last 10%. Latest one is claiming that sporadic Netflix issues are a valid reason for withholding payment (despite me giving my streaming media speech). I wanna put a disclaimer in our contracts for streaming media and not being able to guarantee reliability of 3rd party services and content availability, bosses have said no so far.

Why not just add a clause to your contract like the phone or cable companies do. If you don't pay the bill, services will be turned off until the bill is paid.

Unless you're charging your client an ongoing monthly fee for the use of their system, probably best to avoid that kind of use of the term "service" in your contract.

How about this:

"Failure to pay upon Substantial Completion may result in the cessation of system operations."

Ask them if they would stand for their employer withholding 10% of their pay, just because it is perceived that they didn't put forth their best effort.

If they withhold, because of a streaming service provider, they're screwing you, based on that provider's performance. Your bosses need to realize that they're screwing themselves by implying that they're guaranteeing the streaming reliability and that will bite them on the ass. Too many hold-backs is exactly like too many accounts receivables- they can kill a business.

I have one and only one special note at the end of all of my quotes that I make the client read back to me so it comes out of their mouths at least once! I have been doing this for 10 years now and not had one problem.

"X company is not affiliated with any Cable, Satellite, Phone or Network Services provider and cannot be held responsible for their signal transmission or service."

That's perfect.

Would anyone who's address these types of concerns, mind sending over a contract? We won't blatantly rip it off. I would like to see what a customer is reading from another AV company out there. And, perhaps tweak ours a bit.

The business side of this industry truly sucks. We have to deal with wealthy clients who are timid about spending money on these types of things because most of them have had bad business dealings with other "professionals" in our industry.

I lost my ass (and everything I owned along with it) a few years ago on a project. Out of pocket over 4 months with a client who gave us his "30 day" move in notice. I willingly let the homeowner order televisions off the net because we did not have an avenue to get them for him (22 of them to be exact). Our control manufacture supported a "certified" IP driver for them (not that it worked). I said fine (not that we make a margin on TV's anyway and the project was out of town). I was able to find line drawings for a majority of the set, knew where bolt holes were, asked the customer how high he wanted each tv and went to town building rakcs, installing baluns, and putting in mounts. Needless to say, the tvs petered in off the net over the course of 3 months. I had someone up there every week (out of my own pocket). We were about 85% done with the job and had another ready to move in. I told the customer we had to go to Houston for 2 weeks and would be back. At this point we were still missing televisions and light fixtures. There was no way we could have completed his project. He was in breech of contract, but highly disagreed with us going away for 2 weeks and filed suit saying we abandoned his project. I don't put all the blame on him, some of it was ours, and some of it was with a security sub we had brought in from Houston who wouldn't complete.


Needless to say, this was about the time the market had crashed. We kept focused on one custom builder and kept the relationship with them for a dozen years. About this time, they went belly up with the 4 custom specs (about 2-3 mil a piece) they had in the works. So between this project and the builder, I needed out. I was depressed and loosing everything.

I've been back in it for about a year. I hate to say it, but I have to go into every project looking over my shoulder. I feel like every customer is going to screw me over. Its not how I want to feel, but I'm doing every thing I can to protect myself.

The biggest thing I do to protect myself is provide a scope of work for every room. Basically everything we are going to do and what sources will be available to watch and listen to in each specific room. Being that most the projects are distributed a/v, the rooms scopes are cut and paste. But when we do the demo and walk through of the system, we sit down with the scope room by room and check each feature off the list. If things were changed in the process of the project, there is no reason they can say " your not complete". I hate to have to conduct business this way, but I have learned how the rich stay rich.

I am deeply passionate about this industry, and have been screwed over by it. But at the end of the day, I'm good at what I do. I hate to walk on pins and needles on every job, but now days I do. Your contract is your friend, include a agreed scope of work and hopefully you wont have any issues when it comes to collecting that final check.

Your bosses are stupid/crazy. They are not collecting what they have earned due to a problem with a third party service provider. They receive zero money from Netflix and have zero control over how Netflix works. Your systems require electricity to work, if the electricity goes out intermittently can the client not pay you. You need a line of demarcation. Something like a cable box is easy, you are responsible for sending the codes to control the box and you are responsible for taking the output and distributing it where it needs to go. Problems with the cable service not working, box locking up, not or sluggishly responding to remote codes, problems with the audio/video quality being output, or broken/defective box, all are cable company problems. Netflix is a third party service that is transferred over another third party service, distributed over a computer network, decoded thru a box that requires updates (service) and then goes into your system. There is no way you should be responsible for that. Not only does your company deserve to be paid for the work they did, they deserve to be paid for any time spent fixing issues with third party systems.
This is the best advice you can give them.
It is in the spirit of Goodfellas ‘F*** You, Pay Me.