<<So I have been working for a school district for a couple of years. All of a sudden, when I turn in my invoice, they say they can't pay it until I send them "some paperwork". The paperwork is a request for my business licensenumber, my client list, and a contract.>> I hadn't focused on the time issue, but I agree that the time to ask for this kind of thing is before they offer you the work, not when they are required to pay you. I think that all you really are required to give them to get paid should be an invoice, and your social security number. The time to demand a contract is when offering the work. In situations like this I try to remember that the person doing the demanding is almost certainly not the person who set up the system, and I make it clear that I have nothing personal against them. There are ways and ways of saying things. One could (pleasantly) say something like, "the time to ask for that was before the school hired me to do the work. If you wish to demand it before hiring me again, we can talk about it. In the meantime, I've done the work and I need to be paid, as you always have paid me before without this paperwork." Or something like that. What one does also depends a lot on how hungry one is. There was a moment in the immediate past when someone decided to put this system in place. The time to object to it, should one choose to do so, is immediately, before it becomes entrenched enough to be considered "normal." We really are very lucky, as professionals go, working so much for private individuals -- they phone, we schedule, we do the work, they write a check, we fold it in half and walk out the door. Few people these days are so lucky in having such a simple and unregulated set up. Susan
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