I worked the trade for about four years and I have not taken a side job in fifteen. I manage projects for a general contractor in Salt Lake now, so I spend a good part of my week on who owes what to whom and when it shows up.
What do you do when a customer will not pay?
Do not leave. If the work is done, there is no reason to be sitting in your truck before the money is in your account. If you already left, call and tell them you will be by in fifteen minutes to close out the invoice.
Almost all of this gets solved before you start
That is not a satisfying answer when somebody already owes you money. But it is the true one, and if you are reading this before a job instead of after one, it is worth more than everything below it.
Take a deposit. Material money before you start. Fifty percent on a furnace, twenty-five percent on added diffusers. Say it plainly — it costs money to buy material, and that is not an awkward conversation unless you make it one. A customer who will not put money down before you spend yours is telling you something.
Put a payment clause in the estimate. Not on the invoice. On the estimate, before anybody agrees to anything. That way payment timing is a term you both accepted, not an argument you are having in a driveway.
Write terms as due upon completion. If you put net 15 or net 30 on a side job, you just handed somebody fifteen or thirty days, and plenty of people will take all of it.
Make the invoice match the estimate. Same lines, same order, same numbers. If you were explicit about what was included and you did exactly that, there is nothing to dispute. Most non-payment is not somebody deciding to steal from you. It is a disagreement about what was supposed to happen.
All of that is covered properly in how to invoice for side work.
The real answer is that you do not leave
Everything else on this page is a workaround for having driven away.
The work is done. You are standing there. There is no reason to be in your truck before the money is in your account.
Say so, and give them something to do while it happens. While you get the payment ready, I can finish cleaning the fingerprints off the registers.
That is not a hard conversation. You are not standing over anybody. You are finishing your work while they finish theirs, and then you both leave happy. Nobody has to be uncomfortable and nobody has to chase anything next week.
If you already left
Payment was due on completion and it is a few days later. Call. Not a text, not another emailed invoice — a phone call, and the point of the call is that you are coming over.
Here is roughly what I would say:
I appreciate you hiring me to do the work, and now that it is complete I need to close out my invoices. I will be by in about fifteen minutes so you can tap, swipe, write a check, or Zelle me, and we can verify together that it came through. If you do not think I am complete, let me know what that is so I can finalize it and close the invoice.
Two things are doing the work in there.
We verify it together. You are not leaving on a promise that it went through. You are both watching the phone.
You invited the objection. If something is actually bothering them, that sentence gets it said out loud instead of turning into silence. Most of the time there is nothing. When there is something, you would much rather hear it now than wonder for three weeks.
If that does not do it, give it another couple of days and go again. The tone does not need to change much. You hired me, I am done, keep your commitment.
Find a reason to be back at the house
If it has gone further than that, stop calling and go back.
I think I left my drill in your attic. While I am here, can we close out this invoice.
That is not sneaky, it is graceful. It gives both of you a way into the conversation without anybody having to be confrontational about it, and money is much harder to avoid in a doorway than it is in a text message.
While you are there, walk the checklist. Go through the scope line by line, give them a copy showing everything is done, and have them sign your copy confirming you are complete.
Now there is no version of the story where the work was not finished.
What your options actually are
There are real mechanisms here. A mechanic’s lien is one. Small claims court is another. A formal demand letter is a third.
I am not going to walk you through any of them, and you should be suspicious of anybody on the internet who does. The rules are different in every state, the deadlines are unforgiving, and missing a lien deadline means the right is gone for good. That is a conversation with somebody licensed where you work, and it is worth having before you need it rather than after.
What I will tell you is the part the law firm blogs leave out.
On a side job for a homeowner, the amount is usually small enough that the machinery costs more than the debt. Filing fees, time off work, an afternoon in a courtroom, the follow-up. You can be completely in the right and still come out behind by chasing it.
That is not a reason to let people walk on you. It is a reason to know your number before you get emotional about it.
When to write it off
I do not have a formula for you and I am not going to invent one.
There is no dollar figure where I stop. There is no number of weeks. At some point you have made the calls, you have been back to the house, and you know. I have faith in humanity — they should have paid by now.
It is a feeling, and anybody telling you it is a spreadsheet has not been in it.
What I can tell you is that the feeling almost never arrives if you did not leave in the first place.
On the commercial side it is a different animal
Worth understanding what you are not dealing with on a side job.
On a commercial job a subcontractor bills the general contractor. The general contractor bills the owner, usually once a month. The owner reviews it and puts it into their process, which can take three weeks to several months. Once the general contractor is paid, they have their own internal checks before a check goes out the door.
That is paid-when-paid, and it is standard practice. It is why a sub can do the work in March and see the money in July.
On a side job you are the general contractor for that scope, working directly with the owner. No chain, no month-end cycle. Which is why side work pays faster, and also why when the money does not come it is not a process problem, it is a person problem, and that is a different thing to solve.
I have had to terminate contracts in my project management role, and I have written a notice to cure four times. One of those, the contractor had simply run out of manpower and did nothing about it, and eventually walked away from the job. We paid a premium to bring in an out-of-town crew on short notice.
Nobody won that one. Not us, not him.
The thing I would actually tell you
If you cannot take on the work, do not take on the work.
That contractor who walked away did not start out planning to. He took work he did not have the people for, and every week it got worse until leaving was the only move he had left.
The same thing happens at side job scale. You say yes to something on a Saturday because it is a few hundred dollars and you do not want to disappoint somebody. Then you are behind, and you are working late, and you are short with people at home over a job you did not want in the first place.
Over-committing will burn you out, cause you unnecessary stress, and ruin your relationships. None of that is worth what the job pays.
For what it is worth, I never got stiffed on a side job. I think that is mostly the deposit, and not leaving until I was paid.
Common Questions
How do I stop this happening in the first place?
Deposit before you buy material, a payment clause in the estimate, terms written as due upon completion, an invoice that matches the estimate line for line, and do not leave the job before you are paid. That combination settles almost all of it.
Should I take a deposit on a small job?
Yes, at minimum for material. Twenty-five percent on added diffusers, fifty percent on a furnace. Somebody who will not put money down before you spend yours is giving you information.
Is it rude to wait at the house for payment?
No, and it is only awkward if you make it awkward. Give yourself something useful to do while they sort it out. Clean up, wipe down the registers, load your tools slowly. You are finishing your work while they finish theirs.
Can I put a lien on somebody’s house?
Mechanic’s liens exist, but the rules and deadlines are different in every state and getting them wrong forfeits the right entirely. That is a question for somebody licensed where you work, and it is worth asking before you need the answer.
Is a text message enough of a record?
It is better than nothing and it is time-stamped. A written estimate they agreed to, and an invoice that matches it, is a great deal better. Paper trail protects them as much as it protects you.
Getting the estimate right is where most of this is won. Start with how to price a side job and how to invoice for it.