How to pay freelancers

As someone who employed freelancers (and didn't always get it right) and am now a freelancer, here are some things I think make for good practice when paying freelancers.

Be generous in what you pay up front. Don't wait for them to complete the whole job before submitting an invoice. If you expect them to trust you to pay them after they've done the work, you should trust them to deliver once you've paid some (or all).

Pay freelancers for the time you spend negotiating how much you're going to pay them (especially if there's a lot of back and forth). "I recognise it's taken some time to agree the terms of the contract so please invoice for X hours to take this into account."

Pay freelancers quickly. 30 days is a long time to wait. As always, it's the smaller companies leading the way here - most small orgs pay within days. Larger ones take ages. Why?

Don't let them do all the admin. I've done small jobs for which I've had to fill in 5 or more forms. If the info you need is on my invoice, then take the time to add it to your database yourself, don't ask me to replicate it.

Check in to see if the terms of the contract still reflect the amount of work being done. "Can I just check you're been able to do this work in the time we allocated? Do you need more time?" Have a specific budget line to manage additional time required.

What else makes for good practice when paying freelancers?
See my original post on LinkedIn