Speed
0.75×
1×
1.25×
1.5×
2×
3 min 9 sec
0:00
A retainer signs up
0:19
How a retainer works
0:49
The value of predictable
1:13
Give it edges
1:41
Recurring invoices in Beeswax
2:23
Recap and quiz
Accounting 101
·
Getting paid
·
Episode 10
Retainers
(The two most beautiful words: every month.)
Harbour and Co sign up for a monthly support retainer. How to record it, why predictable income is precious, and why every retainer needs clear limits.
retainers
recurring invoices
recurring revenue
Transcript
0:00
July. Harbour and Co. sign up for a support retainer. Fifteen hundred a month, for ongoing design help. Every month. Until someone says stop.
0:10
For a freelancer, those are the two most beautiful words in the language. Every month.
0:19
A retainer is a fixed fee, paid regularly, for ongoing work, or for simply being available when the client needs you.
0:27
The accounting is refreshingly simple. Each month, Maya invoices fifteen hundred. Debit trade debtors, credit services income. Revenue, in the month she provides the service.
0:40
July, fifteen hundred. August, fifteen hundred. September, fifteen hundred. You can almost hear the calm.
0:49
The real magic is predictability. Fifteen hundred a month is eighteen thousand a year that Maya can count on, before she's won a single new project.
0:59
That baseline pays the fixed costs. Rent, software, insurance. Everything that turns up whether or not a client does.
1:07
A good rule of thumb. Retainers pay the rent. Projects pay for the holiday.
1:13
One warning. Every retainer needs edges. Maya's covers twelve hours a month. Write that down, and track the time against it.
1:22
Otherwise, twelve hours quietly becomes twenty, and her lovely fifteen hundred works out at seventy-five an hour. We did this in episode seven. We're not doing it again.
1:33
Extra hours? Bill them as extra. Unused hours? Decide up front whether they roll over. Usually, they don't.
1:42
In Beeswax, you set up the first invoice once, then make it recurring. It repeats every month, on the same day.
1:49
Each month, Beeswax creates the new invoice, adds the period to the title, and finalises it. So it posts to the ledger, all by itself.
1:58
Add the client's email, and it goes out automatically too. Set a stop date if the retainer has an end, and Beeswax will tell you when it finishes. No more forgetting to invoice in August. We've all done it.
2:13
And if a client ever wants to pay the whole year upfront? Lovely for the bank balance. But careful. That's not a year of revenue. That's next time.
2:23
So. A retainer is revenue each month you provide the service. It's predictable, which makes it precious. Give it edges. And let the software send the invoices.
2:34
Quick one. Harbour and Co's retainer starts in July, at fifteen hundred a month. How much retainer revenue has Maya earned by the end of September?
2:44
Have a think.
2:48
Four and a half thousand. July, August, September. Three months, at fifteen hundred.
2:55
Predictable. Boring. Wonderful.
2:58
Next time: money in advance. Deposits, and why cash you haven't earned yet is, technically, a debt. Brace yourself. We did warn you.