Where's My Check??

Went last night to see a "panel of distinguished guests" speak about the recent news that Omnicom (holding company for the likes of BBDO, DDB, TBWA/Chiat Day and a host of other agencies)has changed its contract language to shift its liability to NOT pay vendors for services rendered until it is paid by ITS clients. In addition, they purportedly will no longer be paying any advances for production. Both changes are incredibly bad news to anyone who counts agencies as clients, and are ludicrous, if they are indeed put into in practice by Omnicom's agencies. My takeaway from last night's speakers panel was that there's not really a whole heck of alot we can do about it as long as there are people willing to work under the new terms, which in this economy, few would turn down. Ironically, we are working with Atmosphere BBDO at the moment. As much as we enjoy the folks we've worked with there, as well as BBDO/NY and Energy BBDO in Chicago, the agency's accounts payable has ALWAYS sucked, and getting money from them on a timely basis is impossible. On that note, one of the panelists made a great suggestion, which is to date the invoice with the date of the shoot, regardless of when it is billed. According to her, the invoice date is not scrutinized by the front line budget folks (ABs, ADs, AEs) but is by the accounting clerks, who schedule payment based on that date. I'm going to try it on my next job. At the same time as this bad news arrived, we're also seeing more clients willing to pay electronically, which speeds up the payments greatly. Could that be the silver lining we all are looking for? Maybe. Now all we need are some projects to bill...