Most tradies who get burned aren't burned on the last invoice, they're burned on the money they never asked for up front. You buy the materials, you give up a week of your calendar, and the customer holds every dollar until the end. A deposit and a couple of progress claims turn that around, and they're completely normal on any job worth more than a day's work.
Why a deposit isn't rude
A deposit does two jobs. It covers the materials you're about to lay out for, so you're not funding someone else's renovation off your own account. And it's a commitment, a customer who has paid something is far less likely to cancel on you the morning you were due to start, after you've turned down two other jobs for that week.
Customers expect it. Nobody blinks at paying a deposit for a kitchen or a car. The only reason it feels awkward is that you're the one asking, in person, on the day.
Know the cap before you ask
For domestic building work, most states put a legal ceiling on the deposit you can take, and it's usually a percentage of the contract price that varies with the size of the job. The limits, the contract thresholds and the wording you need on the paperwork differ by state and change from time to time, so check your own state's building authority or fair trading body rather than copying what someone told you on site. Commercial work and straight service call-outs are generally a different story again.
The practical version: for a small job, asking for materials up front is reasonable and uncontroversial. For anything big enough to need a written contract, look up your state's cap first, because exceeding it can make the contract unenforceable and that is a very expensive way to learn the rule.
Progress claims on anything longer than a week
A job that runs three weeks should not have one invoice at the end. Break it into stages that mean something the customer can see, and invoice as each one lands:
- Deposit on acceptance, to cover materials.
- A claim when the rough-in or the first visible stage is done.
- A claim at practical completion.
- The balance on final sign-off.
Tying claims to visible milestones rather than dates is what keeps them uncontroversial. 'The frame's up' is not an argument. 'It's the 15th' can be.
Put it on the quote, not in a conversation
The single thing that makes payment terms stick is that the customer read them before they said yes. Deposit amount, what each progress claim covers, when payment is due and what happens if it isn't, all on the quote they accepted. Raise it at the end of the job instead and you're negotiating from the weakest position you'll ever be in: work already done, money already owed.
The best time to agree how you get paid is before you've done the work.
What to do when a claim goes unpaid
Stop before you start the next stage. Continuing while a claim is outstanding is how a $2,000 problem becomes a $15,000 one. A short, unemotional message referring to the terms they already agreed to does most of the work, and if it doesn't, most states have a security-of-payment process for construction work that is far faster and cheaper than court.
Where Agentize fits
Agentize puts your terms on every quote automatically, raises each progress invoice off the job instead of off your memory, and chases the ones that go past due so you don't have to be the one sending the awkward text. If you're still working out the rate underneath all of this, the free charge-out rate calculator is a good place to start.
This is general information, not legal advice, and deposit limits genuinely differ by state, so check yours.