From ProZ.com Wiki

See also: Detecting and reacting to false job offers and other scams

Overview

This page is dedicated to the normal risk management precautions that translators and interpreters should take as part of their normal professional activities.

Qualification of new outsourcers

The following are basic things to remember when approached by a new outsourcer. Remembering these things will save any translator plenty of immediate and long-term trouble.

1. Identify the customer: An email address is not enough of an identification of a customer. Ask the customer for their website, full company name, address, and telephone. Check that you are receiving the emails from the customer's domain, not via Gmail, Yahoo, etc. (some scammers use the name of a legitimate agency but use a Gmail or Yahoo account). Verify all details yourself via web, Yellow Pages, Companies House, etc. Call them at least once to the number you found in the web (not the one you were given) and try to get in touch with the person who emailed you. Use the call to ask for some missing detail. Use Google Maps' Streetview (or other maps website) to check the place. A supposedly important agency will rarely operate from an old shotgun house somewhere... or from a vacant field... or a street that does not exist!

2. Assess the outsourcer's reliability as a business partner: Try to find out about the reliability of the customer in terms of clear and responsive communications, correct specifications, and payments. For instance, if you are a Proz.com member, you can look for the company in the Blue Board. Even if you really need the work, do not underestimate the negative comments if you find any about an outsourcer. Translators rarely give a bad opinion about an outsourcer unless there are important reasons to do so. On the other hand, read good comments carefully, since some people write a good comment after a first job and regret it later. The good comments that have a real face value are those from people who have done a number of jobs for the outsourcer over a long time including payment dates.

3. Identify the job: Ask your customer for the files to be translated, examine them, count the words, and identify any other tasks to be done on them: potentially lengthy preparations before translation, formatting after translations... Calculate the wordcount, as well as the time for the ancillary tasks if they will take a lot of time.

4. Identify the time of delivery: Ask for a clear statement from the customer as to the delivery date and delivery time of that day, including the time zone. If no delivery time is given, do make sure you make a statement that you will deliver by the end of the delivery day (i.e. by "EOB", end of business).

5. Establish the cost: Make sure the exact rate to be paid (not just for new words, but also for matches in the case of CAT jobs) is made clear before accepting the job.

6. Ask for a purchase order: Once the customer and job have been established, ask for a proper purchase order (all companies and agencies have this format) or an email from your prospect stating their full company details (full physical address, phone, website, contact email), exact extent of the job (wordcount, files to be translated, any other tasks expected from you), exact total cost (ideally also your rate, rate breakdown in CAT-based jobs, price per hour if work per hour is involved...), delivery date and time, including the time zone (or a statement that the time is EOB), and exact payment terms (how many days after your invoice you will be paid and by which method).

Some customers get impatient about all this and sometimes ask you whether they can send you the PO later on because they are busy. You must explain to them that it is in the interest of both parties to clarify the job fully before going ahead, and that as a professional you cannot start a job for a new customer without a proper order stating all details.

Never start to translate a single word without establishing all these things! Otherwise trouble is coming your way one way or the other. It is far better to let a customer go (if they get impatient about establishing the job or simply don't answer your questions) than having to suffer in a few days... and for many days.

Legitimate customers will patiently and gladly work all this out with you and will make an effort to give you whatever you need for the job (including the PO).

Bad customers (and scammers, and non-payers) will not answer some things, will delay the answers until delivery time, or will change the conditions during the execution of the job. By establishing everything in a clear manner, you protect yourself from trouble and prove that you will act in a professional manner.

Credit insurance

Any business-- including the business run by a freelance translator-- includes risk, and one of the biggest risks is non-payment of invoices.

One solution is credit insurance. You can insure against such risks, at a price, and the cost of insurance should be set against the likely risk of loss of income from non-paying customers. If the insurance premium exceeds what you estimate to be your probable risk of non-payment (e.g. 5% of your turnover), then risk insurance may be of no interest, but if it is less than your estimated bad debts, credit insurance is a paying proposition. If you have an overdue payment or a non-payment, and the defaulting company is insured, you will receive a percentage (usually 75%) of the unpaid invoices from your insurer.

There are other advantages of using credit insurance. If you have a policy with a credit insurance company, it will tell you the credit rating of any company you are interested in working with, or currently working with, and that in itself can avoid some nasty surprises later. The down side is that if you deal with a company that your insurance provider refuses to insure, and you are stuck with an overdue payment or a non-payment, you have to bear the loss.

Knowledge of customers' credit-worthiness is vital to any business. It determines whether, and under what terms, a company will trade with another. This same principle can be applied to the business of freelance translation.

Payment terms

• European directive 2000/35/EC
• Recommended terms and conditions of the Société française des traducteurs - SFT

Upfront payment and milestones

Aside of the risk reduction practices mentioned above, the freelancer can propose upfront payment in cases where there is no or insufficient information about the outsourcer available. Upfront payments can be total prepayments (for smaller orders), part advanced payments or they can be the first of a set of milestones for larger projects. Upfront payments are a fairly common risk minimization practise in the freelancing market, they make sense in cases when the freelancer can provide proofs of his/her expertise (like samples, certifications and a profile with feedbacks from clients), while the available information about the client is insufficient (like a profile without BB entries or no profile) or even alarming (low BB record).

Further reading

• For the safe handling of emails, see Risk management: Email
• For more specifics on using the ProZ.com Blue Board, see Risk management: the Blue Board
• Risk-management information specific to France (in French)