The Invoice:
Its Theory and Practice
(extract and ording
info)
Regardless of
whether you have a formal written contract with a
publication or are simply leaving a one-sided paper
trail on an assignment, invoicing is crucial. . .
. You do not need to ask permission to submit an invoice;
simply send one along to your editor when you've finished
the job. No professional in any field has any right
to object to submission of an invoice, and I've never
had an editor object to receiving one.
Your invoice should
look like an invoice, not a letter. That is, it should
look like something that belongs on a bookkeeper's
desk, not on an editor's. If in doubt, look at any
invoice for services rendered that you get from anyone
else -- your dentist, your auto repair shop, your
electrician. No chat, totally impersonal: letterhead,
invoice number, invoice date, client info (editor,
publication, publication address), ID of job (title
of essay or 5-10 word summary thereof, e.g., "Interview
with Brad Pitt in Cuernavaca,"), length of essay
(word count), date the assignment was accepted by
you, date the final text was approved for publication
by the editor, amount of payment due and terms in
that regard (e.g., on submission, on acceptance, on
publication, within 30 days), rights licensed (FNAPSR,
or whatever), who to make the check out to, where
to send the payment, and your Social Security number
and birthdate.
This is everything
that just about any accounting department needs in
order to process a payment. Submitting such invoices
will -- I guarantee -- improve your cash-flow speed
and eliminate 95% of the problems you have with slow
or delayed payments.
But it also serves
another crucial function: It's the last and in some
way the most critical scrap you leave along your paper
trail. That's because in it you reiterate . .
Copyright
© 2000 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved.
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