We sell this kind of software... it's both a pain and a dream in one go. (note: while we are an actual company the software side of things is very "indie" so a

We sell this kind of software... it's both a pain and a dream in one go. (note: while we are an actual company the software side of things is very "indie" so a lot of this stuff applies) It's a pain because managers can be really awkward sometimes if their ass appears to be in any way on the line - one piece of software we offer manages the auditing of classified material and, for obvious reasons, selling it has been hard (even though pretty much every company is just using a NAS with the files on it....) It's a dream because apart from the odd manager you can predict exactly how everyone at the company will react (from legal through to tech). After about 10 sales you will be able to pitch it in a way that leaves them with no questions :D Regarding this article... Please read this 100 page document about our invoicing process. We've actually had success just saying "I'm sorry this will incur an extra admin cost of X, if you like this is how we generally invoice...". All these companies like to think they have a highly efficient invoice process compared to everyone else - but the truth is that pretty much every company has the same basic ideas :) (note: YMMV - we sell to specific/specialized companies in the same fields who all tend to be quite similar anyway) "We will release the funds after you provide your US social security number." This has proven a problem for us in the past - some of the companies (about 30% of our sales are in the US) genuinely don't believe anyone in the UK is able to write/sell software on an enterprise level :P You'd also be surprised how many times we get asked to come out and do a demo of the software - and they can't understand that is a non-trivial trip :) "We only pay using Bankers' Scrolls made from papyrus" This is absolutely the biggest ball ache. Especially because they want US bank details... Paypal is, in my opinion, a complete no-go anyway once you are over about $1000 (and possibly a lot less). We've set up a merchant account and threw up a really simple payment gateway for clients. This has proven pretty popular and has yet to be refused; in fact I think once a company becomes aware that we "handle our own payments" they are willing to work with it. Credit Cards have proven to be perfectly acceptable even for the biggest companies. "If someone sues us over your product, you have to pay our legal costs." Just outright refuse this if you can. Mostly because there is wide possibility for them to try and screw you with it if they make a mistake. If they insist I always make sure it explicitly deals with what circumstances can be considered "our fault" (i.e. bugs etc. rather than misconfiguration). Most companies seem reasonably happy if you offer them free "on-site" technical support in the case that they run into difficulties which might lead to legal issues (usually through a claim-back of tech support costs after the fact). (as always - your experience may differ, all companies are different)