A client's single line in an email settled a 6 month billing fight

Back in March I had a retainer agreement dispute with a small nonprofit in Dayton, they owed me $2,400 for three months of work but claimed my invoice was too vague. The owner finally wrote back, 'our board needs line items or we can't pay anything,' and that one sentence made me realize my contract never defined how to break down expenses. Has anyone else had a payment hold up just because your agreement didn't spell out the format for invoicing?

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wendy_perry11d ago

...and that's exactly why I started putting "invoice must include itemized breakdown of hours and expenses" in every single contract now. Learned that lesson the hard way too, same thing happened with a client back in 2021. It's such a simple fix but it saves you from so much back and forth later. Did you end up redoing the invoice just to get paid, or did you push back on the wording?