Clients paying monthly

LouM

Hello

My clients will be paying me monthly by direct debits (through gocardless) but i'm struggling with the wording for my terms and conditions. How do others manage this?

Obviously I want to avoid a situation of a client joining one month before their year end, paying monthly and receiving their their accounts and then the client leaving and expecting to cancel their payments with no further payment due (obviously I'm not expecting this to happen but even if its several years after they join I want to make payment allocation to service received transparent) I assume I need a clause such as 'a minimum of 12 monthly payments are needed to be received' or something stating that upon cancellation of our services a balancing payment may be required. I don't want to take an upfront payment and am happy receiving payment in arrears for some clients as others will be in advance, I just want to ensure that I don't do large amounts of work for free.

I find the letters of engagement etc a really hard part of being a licenced accountant.

Thanks in advance. Lucy