For film & TV freelancers
If they pay you late,they should pay you more.
Film and TV run on freelancers like you, yet the payments you live on are far too often late. The law is clear about what happens next. Hielda chases your invoices and adds the interest and late fees you’re owed, professionally and within the law.
Six weeks free · No card · Nothing sent without your approval
Made by a working producer · Used or trialled by freelancers in
Acting·Camera·Sound·Lighting·Production·Costume
The problem
Nobody decides not to pay you
The job wrapped weeks ago and the invoice is still unpaid. It is almost never a decision. The production office closes, the accountant starts another job, and your invoice sits in an inbox nobody opens.
And you say nothing, because your next job comes from the same few people.
“It’s with accounts.”
It has been for three weeks. The payment run is always next Friday.
The office has closed.
The people who booked you are on another job, and nobody is reading the production inbox.
You’d rather not be that person.
So thirty days becomes sixty, and sixty becomes ninety.
The law
What a late invoice is actually worth
If you invoice as a sole trader or through your own company, the Late Payment Act adds interest at 8% over the Bank of England base rate, plus a fixed fee of £40 to £100 on every invoice.
It needs no clause in your deal memo. It applies from the first day the invoice is overdue.
Invoice
One week, second unit
| 5 days at £350 | £1,750.00 |
| Kit hire, one week | £400.00 |
| Statutory interest at 11.75% | + £31.15 |
| Fixed recovery fee | + £70.00 |
| Now owed | £2,251.15 |
The fee is £40 on invoices under £1,000, £70 up to £9,999.99 and £100 above that. Try your own figures in the calculator.
11.75%
Statutory interest a year
£40–100
Fixed fee per late invoice
30 days
Default terms if none agreed
6 years
To claim what you’re owed
How it works
Hielda does the asking
Raise the invoice in Hielda, or add one that’s already late. The rest runs to a schedule, and every email waits for your approval.
Before it’s due
Two short reminders, five days and one day ahead, so your invoice makes the payment run.
Day 1 overdue
The first chase. Interest and the fixed fee go on, calculated to the day.
Days 7 to 30
Four more, each firmer than the last, each stating the new total.
After 30 days
A Letter Before Action, drafted from the invoice and ready for you to send. Then a formal reminder every month until you’re paid.
The details
Built around how crew get paid
Day rates, overtime, kit, mileage
Each on its own line, all on one invoice.
PO and job numbers
At the top of the invoice, where accounts look first.
Receipts
Attached to the PDF, so expenses don’t get queried.
Purchase orders
Import the PDF and the lines fill themselves in.
Your name on it
Emails go out on your behalf, and you’re copied on every one.
Your call
Pause the chasing on any invoice, whenever you like.
Who it’s for
If you invoice, you’re covered
Covered
- You invoice the production as a sole trader.
- You work through your own limited company.
- You hire out kit, vehicles or facilities.
- Commercials, corporate, promos and dailies.
Not covered
- You’re paid through the production’s payroll. Late wages are an employment matter, and your union or Acas is the right call.
- Your agent invoices and collects for you.
Six weeks free, no card. One recovered late fee pays for the year.
£3.99 a month or £34.99 a year after the trial
