Why I ask you to pay in advance.

Receivables, as you know, are often a problem. It may be a terrible time sink and will give you bad vibes on top. I'll rather be doing something else than chasing delinquent accounts. But even non delinquent accounts must be cared for. I must keep track of them and check if and when they pay, etc. In other words is an additional burden which may overwhelm a one man show like me.

Generally, my customers are better off financially than myself. Paying in advance or paying after, say, 30 days makes not much difference for them while it makes a lot for me.

Consider also that practically all international trade is carried mostly by LC (letter of credit), in other words payments are (more or less) assured. Now, for pictures it would be a nonsense given the cost of a LC , but the principle applies nonetheless. People avoid risk if there is no a practical way to get their money. It would be practically impossible to chase a $300 credit on another continent.

So please make an effort to understand my situation an play a nice (credit) card.

There are two situations:
- you do not want to pay in advance
- you cannot do it

For the first case I have little advice.
Just consider that as a one man show I cannot afford much time with receivables. If I do spend much time on it, someone must pay for it.

For the second, it usually means that you are an employed in a company with un flexible procedures. In practice, most of the time "if there is a will, there is a way" so try to find it. If the "procedure" is stopping you, the procedure is almost certainly there for financial reasons. In other words, some in the financial department was thinking "if we pay all the suppliers at 30 days we are getting free credit from them". This is the rationale of the procedure. You can easily defuse and appease this argument in your "self quotation" (see self service quotations). Since you make the quotation yourself you just add an item like "additional discount for advance payment 2%".

You can also make some "creative quoting" fiddling a little bit with the numbers. For example you can rise a little bit the initial price and increase de discount for advance payment to 5% for a month. This translates into a +8.55% yearly interest rate for the money.
I have even met situations in which the buyer was "advised" to take the 5% advance payment option by the finance dept.

If everything fails, then email me: Help
I will considered each case on its merit.