Here's one for you, guy has a fire phone system is toast. We contracted to replace the phone system and can only do the undamaged half we moved phones to the new phone system to get him back in service and moved what were existing sets to spare jacks in the undamaged half. He ordered new sets to fill in the damaged half (not used yet). We brought him back in service where we could (for the total number of contracted time and sets). Now he wants to hold final payment for 2 months while contractors fix the damaged area. Thoughts?
TIA

What does your contract say? That is what will determine if he can or can't

Is there more work to do in order to complete what they hired you for?

Was the customer aware of your terms up front? Is this a long time customer with which you have a good relationship? Is his insurance going to cover this? Something about this sounds a little weird.

Usually I feel lu87cky to get paid within 3 months, so 2 months is no big deal...

Sounds like he's waiting for the insurance company to pay up. How and when you get paid should have been conveyed to the customer when you originally quoted him. Everything should have been in writing signed by you and the customer with a payment (I get 50%) up front. I've seen this kind of thing many times. Customer has a fire or some other kind of disaster and they promise anybody that comes along that they will pay to get them up and running. Then it comes time to collect. Many times the insurance company doesn't quite agree with what you charged and what they think it was worth.

-Hal

long ago and far away, a faithful old customer had a fire. being service oriented i and several of my cohorts bent over backwards to get this customer back in business including provision of serious equipment because, we all just knew this faithful customer would do all the right things. a few weeks later, he bought a new system from a competitor. we certainly learned from the situation.

New client. Going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Problem is the terms of the contract have been met. New equipment 8 hours labor. Unfortunately they used the labor time to move and back fill space with people. Battle I will fight later.

What happened to you has happened to all of us at one time or another. Unfortunately there is very little loyalty in this business. I have a couple customers where everything is done with a handshake, with everyone else, it's not a deal until they sign on the dotted line.

Too many times we become a bank, or loan company for the end user.AND hope to get paid.

Update. Finished the install today. Check in hand. The space still needs to be renovated but all the jacks were viable so they wanted to move ahead to verify there was no damage to the voice and data cables.

Glad it worked out for you. But consider what you did wrong that might not work out the same way for the next time.

-Hal