Payment Terms Design

You are not paid late because clients are difficult — you are paid late because nobody designed the date.

What it is

Most late payment is not a collections problem but a design problem discovered late: terms nobody agreed, invoices issued a fortnight after the work, deposits waived one client at a time. Measures where the cash sits against where the work sits, rebuilds the structure to the shape of the work, scripts the conversation that moves a live client base onto it, and installs the register that stops it eroding. For freelancers, studios, agencies and trades — any owner financing their clients by accident.

What you receive

the way you get paid, redesigned — deposit, milestone and retainer structures sized to the real cost of mobilising the work, terms rewritten to remove the chasing they generate, the late-payment and suspension position written before it is needed, the scripts that move new and existing clients onto them, and the exceptions register that stops the structure eroding inside a year

Delivered as a single, complete .md skill file — open it, paste it into any capable chat model, and work. No installation, no account with anyone but us.

Supported models

• Claude (Opus/Sonnet)
• ChatGPT (GPT-4o/5)
• Gemini
• any capable chat model

People reach for it when

• “how to ask clients for a deposit upfront without losing them”
• “changing payment terms with existing clients letter”
• “should i charge 50 percent upfront for a project”
• “milestone payment schedule tied to deliverables not approval”
• “stop clients paying late without chasing every month”

Record

In the collection. The sale room is being fitted; this work goes on sale when it opens.

License

Free-shelf works ship under the DolceDrago House License — use the outputs freely, personal or commercial; the work file itself stays with the house.