Having read on quite a few occasions about people paying their teachers late, I wondered if it was easier if you were teaching at someone's else house to just hold your hand out for your money rather than on the occasions I have read about of someone turning up at the teacher's house without the money and then the having to demand, wait, etc.

I don't teach in others' houses so can't comment, but your topic reminds me that I'm online procrastinating when I'm supposed to be drafting some "your invoice is overdue" letters.

I hate doing it, but I'd also hate not to be able to pay the rent, etc so it must be done!

I've been fortunate to never have someone not pay me or try to get out of it. But then I haven't had many students.

I rarely have trouble with my students, but at the moment I have 3 payments overdue (by a substantial amount of time) and a parent who owes for a book from the end of last year (again, this doesn't usually happen).

Hi guys!

I teach in students' homes and never have trouble being paid. In almost every instance the cheque is produced at the end of the first lesson of term and I am paid on the spot! Otherwise the cheque (or cash) appears the next week. I also pick up music books for some of my students and again am usually paid on delivery of the book.

The only thing that is ever awkward is when I am disorganised in telling parents about exam fees due and end up paying it myself. Sometimes people forget about that one, probably because they don't see anything concrete for it (like a book, lessons etc) but it always arrives eventually!

I'm quite glad things work out that way actually, because I'm not good at being a debt collector!!!

It surprises me that most teachers here don't do what my own teacher does - which is, make the students pay for lessons in advance.

My teacher sends a letter out at the beginning of every term stating her fees, and requires lessons to be paid for in a lump sum either termly or half-termly. This works well; I have to miss a lot of lessons because of illness, but although that's a bore for me, at least my teacher isn't losing out. I have absolutely no problem with the fact that she's put aside that time to teach me and should be paid for it whether or not I am there.

I guess the trouble with this system is that the lessons are expensive and not everyone is able to afford to pay a large sum of money in one go?

I agree oboebunny, I bill my students three times a year and it means that I don't miss out when they go off on holidays during term or whatever (quite a few of them do this!)

On the other hand, if people miss out due to illness or some kind of family problem I will usually give them a free extra lesson before the exams. I think this is fair enough, and provided people don't start extracting the michael it works fine.

I do make it clear though that lessons missed by pupils won't necessarily be made up, so its not expected. You can judge which parents are reasonable and who will appreciate or make the necessary effort for an extra lesson.

I used to pay for my lessons on a monthly basis - that way, it was not too much of a burden on my dad's wallet!

I bill termly in advance, per my contract terms which are a hybrid of the ISM contract and home-school agreement (so that the pupil becomes a party as well as teacher and parents). To help speed up payment I also have a 20% late payment surcharge for accounts not settled by the end of the month.

The only occasional 'battles' (if you can call them that) is when a pupil/parent suddenly decides to discontinue lessons at the beginning of a term. My contract is quite clear that lessons can only be discontinued at the end of a term with half a terms written notice but it still does sometimes happen that I get a note at the start of a term that a child has finished lessons. Usually a quick phone call to parents suffices to remind them of the contract situation (using gym membership/phone contract/mortgage tie-in contracts as analogies when necessary!).

Unfortunately I've currently got one who's still holding out this term - a child whose parents have always been very supportive in the past, attended parents' evenings, phoned when there has been a family crisis etc. It is true that this child has been flagging a little in the autumn but when I was told verbally in January that his mum had given him a letter to give to me at the end of last term (which was still in his music bag!) (and wasn't within my notice period anyway) I was disappointed by the apparent breakdown in communication. I'm extremely reluctant to go down the 7-day warning/ MU debt collection line as I would prefer to avoid a conflict but, to be fair to other students/families who observe contract terms what choice have I got. What do other members suggest?

For my private pupils they pay weekly and only rarely has a parent forgotten. On every occasion they are full of apologies and bring it the week after.

However, my school pupils are a different matter. I bill the parents termly in advance and they tend to come in in trickles throughout the first half of the term.

I still have two outstanding from January and that's despite phone calls home and reminders. One mother is not so well off and asked if she could pay it in two instalments, one each half term. I agreed but then the first payment never appeared so now she owes the full amount.

The school has said if it doesn't appear soon THEY will pay me then recover the money from the parents but it's still really annoying. I hate having to virtually ring up and beg to be paid.

I can sympathise Julie, This is the same situation I am in at the moment.

My initial invoice has not been paid by 3 parents, and next week I'm due to send out the second invoice for the term. The reason I split the term payments in half was to help out these three parents.

I only have three pupils who I teach in their own homes. Their parents pay at the end of each lesson. I have to say that I've never had any problems. We only miss lessons if they are ill or on holiday. I don't think I would do it any differently, and to be honest, it never occured to me to bill by half-terms. I like the weekly wage!

I don't bill by half term or term for my private pupils but collecting money weekly from the kids at school would be a logistical nightmare. It's hard enough to get it off them in the first place without expectng them to remember to send it in weekly.

Besides it's standard practice in private schools to bill termly in advance. At least, it is round here.

I wonder if the problem is because I don't have a relationship with the parents of the school kids, whereas I do with the parents of my private pupils, especially when they've been coming for years.

It seems to me then that there are less incidences of non-payment when the lesson is in the pupil's own home.

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I teach at the pupils house and ask for payment at the end of every lesson, they've no excuse if they didn't pay i'd wait there until they did. I'll sometimes sub them £1 or so until the next week but thats about it. I turn up on time i expect to be paid on time!

I charge a month in advance. As a customer I'd find termly/half termly billing difficult as it's a large chunk to find at once and most people are monthly paid these days. Finding 3 months expenses out of one months income is not easy.

We have shorter terms in Oz, so half-termly billing is 4-5 weeks of lesson payments at a time.

I find the worst problem is collecting money from children in schools, as Julie mentioned, you don't have that personal relationship with the parents so extracting payment can be more difficult.

Well, I got one of the two that were outstanding. The other has promised Monday!!