This is the reason that we send all invoices out in my girlfriends name because I'm a freelancer and a very small company most of the work I get is from people who know me directly and there is a massive personal relationship there.
It's really easy for money to get in the way of a friendship / client relationship but having a separate third party makes that so much easier to deal with.
It makes it very easy to bring up billing in the middle of of an email.
"It would be great to get together to discuss x next week, I'm across your way on Tuesday if your free (by the way, x mentioned that your invoice is still outstanding, any chance you could take a look at that so she stops moaning at me! :) )"
Makes the whole thing much simpler and gives them an easy way of responding with some humor.
(I will mention that x actually does exist and it is her email, she also looks after the accounts.. my main point was that the separation of the billing parts from the 'doing the work' parts has been a good thing for us)
It's really easy for money to get in the way of a friendship / client relationship but having a separate third party makes that so much easier to deal with.
It makes it very easy to bring up billing in the middle of of an email.
"It would be great to get together to discuss x next week, I'm across your way on Tuesday if your free (by the way, x mentioned that your invoice is still outstanding, any chance you could take a look at that so she stops moaning at me! :) )"
Makes the whole thing much simpler and gives them an easy way of responding with some humor.
(I will mention that x actually does exist and it is her email, she also looks after the accounts.. my main point was that the separation of the billing parts from the 'doing the work' parts has been a good thing for us)