From favours to invoices

Not advice. A working sequence. Confirm anything that touches a contract or a tax return with someone qualified to sign it.

A favour has no edge. It expands. You said you would photograph a friend’s shop “when you have a spare evening”, and the spare evening became three, plus edits, plus a reel, plus their cousin. Nobody is villainous. The work was never described, so it cannot be finished.

A client relationship has an edge. It names the thing being bought, the date it is due, what happens if it changes, and when money moves. You can still be warm. Warmth is not the same as an open tab.

Write one page before you start

You do not need a twenty-page master services agreement for a first paid job. You do need the decisions that cause arguments later, written while everyone is still polite. A single page, sent by email, is enough to begin if both of you can point at it.

• Who is buying, in their own name or a business name, and who is delivering.
• What is included, in countable units: six edited photos, one repair, forty jars, two rounds of revisions.
• What is not included. Travel beyond a named area. Rush timing. Extra colours. Source files. Weekends.
• The fee, whether it includes materials, and whether VAT is relevant yet. If you are not VAT registered, do not add VAT.
• A deposit before you buy materials or hold the date. Half is common for small custom work. The rest is due on delivery, or on a named date, not “when we feel like it”.
• How a change is agreed. A message that says “yes, that extra visit is £40 and moves the date to Friday” is a change. A sigh is not.
• Who owns the work when the invoice is paid. For goods, that is usually straightforward. For design, photography, and writing, say whether the client receives a licence or the copyright.

If the buyer is a consumer, a person acting outside their trade, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sits underneath your page. Services must be carried out with reasonable care and skill. Goods must be as described, of satisfactory quality, and fit for purpose. You cannot write those rights away. If the buyer is a business, you have more room to agree terms, and the late-payment rules below become the practical stick.

Ask for the deposit out loud

Side hustles bleed cash on materials bought for people who go quiet. A deposit is not a personality test. It is how you avoid funding a stranger’s project, including a stranger you went to school with.

Say the number in the same sentence as the start date. “I can hold Thursday if the £80 deposit is with me by Tuesday. The balance is £80 when I drop the order off.” Then stop talking. The silence is where the job either becomes real or stays a chat.

Put the business money in the second account the same day. Mixing it with the household account is how a profitable month looks like a loss, and how a loss looks like a treat.

Where the next clients actually come from

The romantic version is a viral post. The version we hear from readers is duller and more reliable.

When a business pays you late

If you are supplying another business, not a consumer, and you did not agree a different interest rate, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 can apply. Statutory interest is 8 percentage points above the Bank of England base rate, plus a fixed sum that depends on the size of the debt. The base rate moves, so calculate it on the day you claim, and read the current GOV.UK page rather than a screenshot from last year.

You do not have to be fierce on day one. A calm sequence works better:

1. Invoice with a due date, your bank details, and a description that matches the page you both agreed.
2. A reminder the day after it is due, with the invoice attached again.
3. A second note that names the statutory interest you are entitled to add if it is a commercial debt, and a date you will add it.
4. Then stop doing new work for that buyer until the old invoice is paid. Hope is not a credit policy.

Consumers are a different regime. Do not paste commercial late-payment wording onto a neighbour’s invoice and assume it bites in the same way. If a debt is large enough to matter, a solicitor or a reputable small-claims route is the grown-up tool. This page is not that tool.

Insurance arrives with strangers

Friends rarely sue friends. Customers sometimes have to. The week you sell to people who do not know your kitchen, look at public liability. If a candle, a jar, a piece of furniture, or a food product leaves your hands, ask an insurer about product liability and any rules that sit on that product, from labelling to cosmetic safety. If you are paid for advice, a design, a set of accounts-adjacent numbers, or a plan someone will rely on, ask about professional indemnity. If you employ anyone, employers’ liability is a legal requirement in most cases, with narrow exceptions.

Buy the policy in the business name you actually trade under. A policy written for “my hobby” is a miserable thing to discover after a claim.

A composite from the desk

A reader in a Lothian town sold cups at a monthly market. Friends took pieces and paid “when they remembered”. She wrote a card for the stall: four shapes, three prices, card payment, orders over six pieces need a 50 percent deposit. The following month she made fewer pieces and took more money, because she stopped making the shapes nobody had asked to pay for. The story is a composite. The card is the part worth copying.