If you read through all of the information that has been provided, they sent out a notice letting everyone know that a new "System "was in place for contractor payments. Also if you are signed up with them, more detail is in a personal letter on your assignment home page from Tom Mills. They have a new contact person for contractor payments.
They realized that they needed to be paying sooner if they wanted their projects completed. In my area, very few contractors were working for them because of the pay cycle. Many of the assignments were not completed. So if they wanted to keep their contracts with retail companies, they had to do something to get more assignments completed.
The comment about the ability to pay sooner by other MSCs shows a lack of understanding about small business cash flow. Most MSCs have limited cash flow because of their size. If they offer a higher rate per assignment, then they keep less margin to operate on. Less margin equals less money in the bank. So these MSCs have to use flow down payments. When the money is received and clears the bank, the MSC then pays the contractors.
So if you do an assignment on Jan 15, it is billed on 30 days beginning Feb 1. If the client pays in less than 30 days, that is a bonus to the cash flow. But most clients will pay in 30-45 days because of their internal accounting systems. The client will verify that the report was accurate by using the receipts and in store video; then they will approve the invoices for payment.
This would make the MSC receive the payment around March 15th. so now they have verify which assignments were paid by the client and which assignments were rejected without payment. Then they approve and make the individual payments. Just because you submit an assignment and the editor accepts it, does not insure that the client will not reject it.
Think about it, the bigger the MSC, the smaller the offered assignment rates. I would much prefer to work with an honorable small business that pays a decent rate, than to work for a larger MSC that calls and begs you to take $4.00 work. They realized that they needed to be paying sooner if they wanted their projects completed. In my area, very few contractors were working for them because of the pay cycle. Many of the assignments were not completed. So if they wanted to keep their contracts with retail companies, they had to do something to get more assignments completed.
So this is just one example of why you might get paid as a contractor with a 60-90 day window. Borrowing money for contractor payments is not available from any loan source that I have heard of. MSCs with deeper pockets can afford to pay sooner, but in most of these cases, ether they have very good clients that pay on a tighter billing schedule or the MSC has such much lower contractor pay rates.
So in this case be happy that Service Sleuth is trying to clean up their office personnel and streamline their payment system. They did not lower their rates as a result.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2010 05:49PM by vanster2000.