How to Manage and Accept Payments as a Freelance Artist

So you’re ready to start taking payments from freelance clients! But where do you start?

One of our viewers asked us this, so let’s get you set up with payment processing and systems like a total pro!

As an artist running a business, you’re in charge of a lot of things. One of those things being money.

You’re in charge of collecting your money, making sure payments go through, setting policies around late payments, the list goes on…

Sometimes it can be daunting, but that’s why we like to put systems in place to have it more automated so we can spend more time doing what we love: art.

Start with your payment terms!

When you send a proposal or quote to a potential client, you’re likely to bring up payment schedules too. Once the client approves, be sure to send over a contract and terms, as well as the first (or final) invoice.

Within your contract, you’ll need to specify how and when you expect to be paid, and what happens if the client doesn’t pay on time. Also known as late fees.

If you don’t have a contract, you’re gonna want to get one! It’ll ensure that you and the client are on the same page, and that everyone will walk away feeling happy.

We created the Contract Kit, which is basically a set of contracts that we wrote with our lawyer to cover everything you’ll need for most types of freelance art and licensing projects.

If you’re interested in how we set up our own payment terms, watch our video on How to Manage & Accept Money as a Freelance Artist!

Accepting Payments

Once you’ve finalized the details on your payment timeline & expectations, you’re going to want to figure out how to actually get paid.

We use Quickbooks, an accounting software where you can send an invoice that goes straight to your client’s inbox, AND they can easily pay you using the methods you’ve made available to them from there!

You can choose several ways to get paid, but our favorite is called ACH transfer. This basically means they’ll send their money directly from their bank to your bank and typically has no processing fees.

Want to learn other payment options?! We go over more ways to get paid in our video below! Go watch it now & let us know if you have any questions in the comments!