I see it all the time. In workouts and in bankruptcy.

OP: You hopefully will learn the take home lesson from this situation, which is that you don't work on credit when you absolutely need the money to live. Debtors default sometimes. You can't fade the variance if you have no reserve cash. It isn't any different that playing poker severely underrolled in a juicy game.

At this point, I would not turn over your work until paid in full or receiving something of value in return, such as an interest bearing note secured by something with sufficient equity that you can foreclose on and be made whole if they fail to pay on the note.

Good luck.

If I don't see the money I'm going to be devastated and it's going to have a serious negative impact on my life (the stress kind of is already, it's demotivating me seriously for my own startup and I was very brash with my family on my birthday last weekend which I feel terrible about).

Anyway I'm going to tell them tomorrow I'm not coming in on Monday because I need that day off to launch with my brother, but I'll do everything for Wednesday to the best of my ability, I don't really have much choice here due to the dynamics. Maybe I could but it just feels super wrong.

On Wednesday I won't be expected to work until the following Thursday anyway, which is the upper limit of the time they said it would take to pay my invoice in full so I'll tell them I can't come in until it's paid in full, let me know the date. I'm a bit worried about this because disconnection with them might make it easier to ignore me.

Awkward situation now because I have a bigger invoice built up (I know I managed it badly). I talked with them the previous week and told them that it's coming and I want it to be paid in 30 days and they said yes that's fine so once this one is paid I'll submit the new one.

Chance of it being paid within 30 days of submission about 100:1

Wow, I can't believe that they are months behind on paying you AND are telling you that you need to get a project done by Wednesday. It's one thing to have trouble paying, but it's quite another to not show any humility about it.

I understand where you're coming from. I tend to be the same way. And, it's absolutely fine to be understanding...to a point. You are waaaaaaay past that point.

Don't go into work on Monday. Don't be the nice guy that tries his best to finish the project while you can't even buy groceries. Get things current and don't ever let them get to this point again. Start charging interest and have a set time period where you stop working if you aren't paid. Give them an invoice every 2 weeks and show a tally of unpaid and new charges. It's not that hard.

At some point, they're going to owe you a tonne of money and you're going to have to cut your losses and walk away (you're pretty much there now). The more you bend over, the bigger that pile of money is going to be.

Director came in and talked to me today, she gave me 2 dates they are expecting payments (next week or one after) and told me the amounts, either one of which will cover amount owed to me. Also appologised a lot to me. Two client went into administration apparently and didn't pay them which caused a lot of problems. A couple of other points which probably aren't suitable to post in here but I've got a lot of confidence I'll have all my money soon. I think it's going to be ok, they also sincierly said they wouldn't have me come in at all if they thought they couldn't afford to pay me.

Also asked me to submit my second invoice today so they could pay it and get up to date with me which is great, hopefully get a lot of money in my bank for first time ever!!!

Great news OP!

You still need to modify how you interact with them to prevent this in the future, though.

Much better! Fingers crossed.

So nothing has changed, right? You still are doing the work and have a promise of future payment. I don't see how the conversation with the director advanced the ball at all.

Administration/recivership rolls downhill, look out.

What changed is that they are communicating, explaining, apologizing, giving a short-term timeline for payment and asking for the new invoice. They can still screw him and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets some more money in the next week or two, but is still owed. It's just better than where it was, but there's no guarantees until the money is in the bank obv.

Unfortunately that's exactly what I and I guess crashjr would expect so not much has changed if anything.

Maybe its just me but the warning bells are getting louder. Could be genuine but it sounds like classic bull or worse that they considered that they might not be able to pay their bills, or even worse that they have reached the stage where they've been advised to be careful they aren't trading while insolvent which is illegal.

Whatever don't let them off the hook on their latest promises, even if the ship is going down a bit of hassle from you could get you paid before it goes.

It's now the second week which they promised I would have full payment, the demo went today as well. It was mentioned ~12% would be paid last week to me which never came, also no one has kept me updated since the chat at all, no mention, no email, no phone calls. Seems despicable to me now because if I ran a business I would make every effort to let my employees know what was going on, perhaps even on a daily basis (a one line email every day).

The demo went brilliantly today apparently. Another one coming up etc with their bosses or something idk. Anyway the director in charge of payments wasn't in today because they were ill. It's perhaps cynical but other people might see that as avoidance.

Either way I'm going in tomorrow morning and phoning them up to ask what day this week it is I'm being paid in full, anything other than a full payment by Friday and I'm going to tell them I can't come in any more and will leave at lunch time. I'm also going to have to send an email to all the directors politely informing them I'm happy to come in next week if I get paid but I have to start exploring other options now as I'm pretty much flat out broke (I actually think it's possible the other Directors are unaware of the situation). Also going to mention politely that I consider all work done since 1st April unpaid and therefore I own the full rights to it. That alone should be a huge motivator for them to pay me as the demos etc are going so well (apparently they absolutely love it).

I looked up the dates exactly, the period of work where non payment started was 1st April, my last invoice paid ~ mid March. Hopefully tomorrow they will just say "oh yeah it's in yur bank now!" but it's not likely. I'm starting to start having payments for some services being rejected now I think as well. I'll be able to borrow some money to tide me over but it f***ing blows (-£1.5k overdrawn, -£800 credit card). Admittedly partly my fault for letting it go on so long passively but it's a lesson learnt I suppose.

In other news startup is going really well so at least I have that!

Sorry to hear it.

If there's anyone above whomever is in charge of payments, get them on the phone and make sure they understand you haven't been paid since 1st April, were promised payment today but didn't receive it, you therefore still hold the rights to the work, and require payment on it right now. You can be polite about it but you must be clear and firm.

You have been working for free since April, and they've been perfectly content to let you. It's one thing for equity-holders not to take a salary while cash is tight, but you are not an equity holder.

I haven't read through all of the threads, but i'm assuming there's an agreement of work to be done, and the value of it before you actually do it?

There's something known as an Insertion Order (IO). On this you can state how quickly to be paid (usually within 30 days of work completion). You won't start any work untill they sign the IO, and then they are committed to paying you promptly.

If not, it's legally binding which you can take to the courts.

Ah, just had a further read, if there isnt an agreement in place beforehand, you just need to chase the hell out of them, and say that you own the rights to the work.

That's a tough one, with no revenue and all those bills.............but you were warned of worst case scenario. And that's exactly what transpired. As of now you have no lever, and as for rights to your work? It's a civil matter, you extended credit. Get in contact with whatever Labour Standards Board exists.

and learn from your mistake.

Spoke to different director because other one wasn't available on phone:

- Money coming in Friday so I will get paid Monday (lol )
- That money is about 200% my outstanding amount and needs to be 'divided up' (I won't get the full amount as promised). 3 directors, 1 colleague and me (they all have houses/mortgages except me)
- He said no-one been paid for 6months+
- I said it's different for me because I have no equity
- He said it's something we can talk about (I'm not interested tbh)
- They nearly sold to a big company but the company pulled out (this was a while ago)
- They are behind a few months on office rent

Great info coming out the day I was promised the full amount

Also I forgot I'm meant to cover my colleagues holiday not next week one after, he's not a director we get on great, I'd feel terrible if I walked. Sitting here no about to go to lunch not knowing wtf I am to do, I got £50 left in my bank and £300 left on credit card so it's a ****.

fml

WTF -- so basically you are paid a salary but expected to take on all the risk of someone who has equity in the business with none of the upside?

Have you been able to confirm that nobody has been paid in 6 months?

You ignored plenty of good advice given in this thread and it went awry as was clear it would. Maybe vent on your blog?

Time to write this one off. Stop showing up. Check if they're still around in a few months and sue the hell out of them

Definitely stop showing up immediately: you're not a charitable organization and there's no hope of them paying. Focus on your start-up and look for other jobs.

Unsure if you want to sue them sooner or later, since you'll most likely be way back on the list if they are already behind on a lot of payments.

OP, get a real business manager if you continue in your own company, you suck at business. Or do you just want people to sit around and commiserate about all your bad luck, how you are someone special, and how it will be all right. That's your mommies job.

Dealing with adversity is part of life and business, but you have some need to place yourself in harms way, for no profit. Get better advisors.

No it's fine I don't want sympathy it's just a big personal hit I'll recover. Home now, going to take it easy today and come up with a plan. I made some mistakes obviously but the fault mainly lies with them as I consider what they did to me as lying to me for a long period of time. I guess I just need to be less trusting in the future in these sorts of circumstances.

Do thy still need you for anything critical?

Basically do you still have any leverage?

Yes I have a bit of leverage, the software I wrote for them is moving up in the demo stages and apparently they love it.

I think a good plan of action would be to withold that from them unless all the Directors sign an agreement for amount owed (regardless of the company goes bankrupt) with some sort of minimum payment plan.

I think you need to be a lot more aggressive than that.

Look at the people who have equity stakes and use your judgment of what kind of personal money they have. Just because the business is broke doesn't mean they are and if this is critical for their businesses they will come up with the cash. It doesn't have to be all of it but something more substantial than a minimum payment. Use your judgment based on what you see.

Also, if it really looks back start looking around the office for anything you might like to own. If it gets so bad that cash doesn't look like an option you might need to recover what you can.