Me and my partner own a new translation agency and my partner arranged a project a couple of weeks ago with another firm. Both signed a mutual contract regarding work and payment. Now, after delivery, they are saying they won't pay because the translation went under reviewing and failed to be good enough. We then got ANOTHER translator to proofread and still they say it's wrong. Again, we got another to review it, and still they say the same. We've got a contract included that payment must be made according to the terms (which are fullfilled) and the translation has been reviewed 3 times by us - who stand strongest? And is there some way we can come to an agreement? Any advice? We've paid both our translator and our proofreaders, and it's gotten much more expensive than planned, but the payment we agreed upon would cover it.
A lot is going to depend on the exact wording of the contract. There is a dispute as to whether or not the work was completed according to the terms. I would ask them to provide you the specific parts that they say were not done correctly. Since you can't force them to pay without legal action, and unless you are talking about a large sum of money or they are located very close to you (small claims) your options are probably limited. If your contract has a "prevailing party" clause for legal disputes, then you might want to consult an attorney if you think this company has the ability to pay. It's one thing to win a lawsuit, it's an entirely different matter when it comes to collecting. You don't want to throw good money after bad. Obviously, getting a deposit up front would have minimized your loss, but trying to work with this company is going to be your best chance of getting paid.
Thanks for the advice Mjewel. I'll check it out a little closer. We've considered taking money upfront, but few wish to pay upfront, but we've considered using escrow for larger project (like this one was).
Honestly this sounds like a client that is simply trying to get out of paying, assuming that the rest of their business and the amount is signifigant it may be worthwhile to pursue legal action.
Everyone else is now talking about payment... but the issue here really isn't money, it's quality of the work. In almost all cases, the best recommendation is to make sure that your contract is VERY specific about how the work is going to be completed, delivered and "accepted". Here, it's the acceptance piece that's causing you trouble, as the client is saying that the completed services aren't "accurate enough". Translation services, unlike many other services, are actually able to be "tested" for accuracy. You can, by finding a third party reviewing group, know whether your translated documents are in line with the original work. Of course, you don't want to have to pay for this... and I am not sure that you should have to. So, I would suggest a significant modification to your template contract for future work. Include a statement that works are deemed accepted 5 days after receipt (that gives the client 5 days to review and comment). If a work is rejected, state that the client must provide detailed and specific information as to the reason for the rejection (ie: they have to tell you what they found incorrect) and that you have 10 days in which to fix the issue and re-deliver the work. This cycle can repeat twice (specific problems with time to fix). If, after the third deliverable is provided (the first plus two cycles of fixes), the client still believes there's a problem, they have the ability to find a third-party review service mutually acceptable to both of you to review ONLY those parts of the document that they pointed out to you as being incorrect. If the third-party review service finds that it's not accurate, then the contract should state that the client will receive a corrected version of the work and that you'll reimburse the client for their payment for the third-party review service's time. If it IS accurate, then you don't reimburse. ... This type of "acceptance testing" style works wonders for resolving disputes of this nature and is used in thousands of contracts every day. As for payment... you are also delivering a service that should EASILY lend itself to almost perfect estimation of the time it'll take to translate (ie: you can do a word-count, etc, to give you knowledge of timing). Provide a fixed-price quote upfront and ask for full payment in advance (or at least 50%). Good luck!
I agree with jigordon about how the contract should be written. It protects you from people like what you are having right now.