I am sending an invoice for £800 to a travel company for some work I done on a holiday brochure. It is actually the first invoice with the completion invoice to be sent in the new year. I am full-time employed now, but just done some work on the side. I have used a template from online to make a quick invoice, but do I need to add anything for VAT?

Hi guys, I am having some issues with a client and would appreciate some good advice as to where to go from here. We have been working on several projects with this client however in July they began to drop further into arrears with their account. In August we asked them to settle their account as their was an invoice since April and they had failed to make payments several times. This led to several reminders and several times they promised to pay only for them to not make any payment. Finally I had no choice but to suspend the account. This is normally enough to quicken the payment up however they accused me of blackmail! After receiving some good advice I offered to unsuspended the account if we received 50% of the payment and we could discuss what their issue is with payment. They soon demanded that they had full access to the website which we have denied. The problem is they owe a large proportion of the fee for SEO and for a different project. I also provide them hosting and have control of their domain name which is part of this outstanding fee. I have asked why they are withholding the remaining 50% however they say they have no issue paying it but want to do it in person. I live in Spain and they are in the UK so it is not suitable for me to go there to collect the money nor do I believe they want to be my friends when I arrive. What do I do? Option 1.) Suspend all their accounts until full payment is made. Option 2.) Give them 24 hours notice that we are cancelling their hosting and give them their website (this is fully paid for however the SEO work is outstanding and domain fee). Option 3.) Keep their website live and then open a small claims court? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I've recently taken the plunge into self-employment for the first time and have been working as a freelance CAD designer for the last 4 months for a company under a very basic contract stating payment within 30 days of receipt of invoice. During that time, the company has consistently been late paying invoices and has required me to continually chase them. They've used all manner of excuses and now the business relationship has ended after the current invoice became yet again overdue (due date 1st December) and leaving me with no option but to get somewhat shirty with them. I sent an Overdue Payment Notice via email on the 4th Dec after they refused to explain why I had not been paid on time yet again, and stated that the company now had 7 days to pay £132 for services supplied, plus 4x statutory late-payment charges of £40 for every late payment (plus £2.32 in interest for the first invoice that was over 60 days late in payment), giving a total due of £294.26. The reply from them, also by email on the 4th Dec was that they only made 1 payroll run a week and that they 'explained' that they made payments after 30 days on the following payroll, and that they confirmed that I would receive the final payment of £132 on 7th December - today. Having just checked my account balances online, there is no sign of any payment into my account. I'm now at the point of taking a small claims action against the company for debt recovery, and to include the £40 charges as stated in the Late Payments Of Commercial Debts Regulations. I've not had to pursue this course of action before, and would like to know if the court would consider it to be reasonable if I include a figure of £120 (8hrs @£15 p/hr - standard industry rate) in business administration costs to cover time & effort spent in chasing them and processing the paperwork to bring the claim against them? I've had a search through the site but can't find any examples on how to best complete the Particulars of Claim for the MCOL document. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Reposted here after advice on other thread:- Hello all, A client of mine who owes me £2730 and my small Ltd company £5500 seems about to go bust. I am a freelancer who has gone Ltd, he owes me from before I went Ltd and after. He also owes countless other freelancers, some of them over £5k but most about £1.5k. None of us have seen any money in months and he has been paid for the events we worked on. As far as anyone can see he has no source of income and will be bust when his rent and rates are for payment in December. What he does have is assets. We would be happy to take some of these and start our own hire operation so we can continue to work and slowly pay everyone back (long term solution as he will leave a big gap in our diaries). Payment would obviously be preferable, he clearly does not have the funds though and I suspect he is close to insolvent. Having been on the receiving end of an insolvent company in administration before (I didn't see a penny of £4k) I suspect if we don't do something before he goes under allot of freelancers won't get paid. There is also the possibility he will try to sign the assets over to someone else before he goes bust. There seems to be quite a complex company structure in place. I have spoken to the union BECTU and they gave a very bleak image, saying that everyone would have to go to the small claims court and he would probably be bust before it got anywhere. That and they were not willing to get involved in any kind of joint action as not everyone is a member. Do we have any options here? Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hello all, A client of mine who owes me £2730 and my small Ltd company £5500 seems about to go bust. I am a freelancer who has gone Ltd, he owes me from before I went Ltd and after. He also owes countless other freelancers, some of them over £5k but most about £1.5k. None of us have seen any money in months and he has been paid for the events we worked on. As far as anyone can see he has no source of income and will be bust when his rent and rates are for payment in December. What he does have is assets. We would be happy to take some of these and start our own hire operation so we can continue to work and slowly pay everyone back (long term solution as he will leave a big gap in our diaries). Payment would obviously be preferable, he clearly does not have the funds though and I suspect he is close to insolvent. Having been on the receiving end of an insolvent company in administration before (I didn't see a penny of £4k) I suspect if we don't do something before he goes under allot of freelancers won't get paid. There is also the possibility he will try to sign the assets over to someone else before he goes bust. There seems to be quite a complex company structure in place. I have spoken to the union BECTU and they gave a very bleak image, saying that everyone would have to go to the small claims court and he would probably be bust before it got anywhere. That and they were not willing to get involved in any kind of joint action as not everyone is a member. Do we have any options here? Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance for any advice.