16.3 Business Closure: Contracts, Invoicing, Record Keeping & Document Retention

CASLI's post-encounter domain requires interpreters to "complete business aspects of interpreting (invoicing, record keeping, etc.), including understanding requirements regarding document retention or destruction." CPC Tenet 6 — Business Practices governs the whole area, and RID's EPS Policy makes several business failures directly actionable.

Freelance interpreting is a small business, and the exam treats business competence as professional competence.

1. Representing yourself accurately

Illustrative Behavior 6.1: interpreters "accurately represent qualifications, such as certification, educational background, and experience, and provide documentation when requested."

This is the most frequently tested business provision because misrepresentation is both easy and consequential:

• Do not claim certification you do not hold. "Nationally certified" means you hold an RID certification; an EIPA score, a state quality-assurance level, a training-programme certificate, and a completed interpreter education programme are none of them RID certification.
• Do not imply a specialty you lack. Listing "legal interpreting" alongside your NIC when you hold no SC:L and have no legal training misrepresents your qualification.
• Do not inflate experience.
• Provide documentation when asked.

RID's EPS Policy treats misrepresenting membership or credentials as prohibited conduct under "integrity of membership and credentials," and RID publishes verification for exactly this reason.

2. Fees and contracts

Illustrative Behavior 6.8: interpreters "charge fair and reasonable fees for the performance of interpreting services and arrange for payment in a professional and judicious manner." 6.7: render pro bono services "in a fair and reasonable manner."

The EPS Policy adds specific prohibitions: obtaining compensation by fraud or deceit, negligent or deceptive billing or record keeping, fraudulent business practices such as "double-dipping," and "charging more than the advertised fees for interpreting assignments in the expected scope and duration."

Double-dipping is billing two parties for the same block of time — accepting a second assignment that overlaps the first, or billing an agency and the end client for the same hours. It is named explicitly in the Policy.

A defensible practice:

• Publish your rates and honour them.
• Agree the scope, duration, and any travel, cancellation, or minimum-booking terms before the assignment.
• Invoice promptly and accurately for what actually occurred.
• Never bill time you did not work, and never round up as a matter of routine.

3. Honouring and terminating commitments

Illustrative Behavior 6.2: interpreters "honor professional commitments and terminate assignments only when fair and justifiable grounds exist." 6.4: inform appropriate parties "in a timely manner when delayed or unable to fulfill assignments."

Cancelling a confirmed booking to take a better-paying one is the paradigm violation. The consumer's access, not the interpreter's calendar optimization, is the interest at stake — and the later the cancellation, the more likely it is that no replacement can be found.

Illustrative Behavior 6.5 supplies the legitimate counterweight: interpreters "reserve the option to decline or discontinue assignments if working conditions are not safe, healthy, or conducive to interpreting." Unsafe conditions, an environment where effective communication is impossible, or a discovered conflict of interest are fair and justifiable grounds; a better offer is not.

Illustrative Behavior 6.6 prohibits harassment or coercion "before, during, or after the provision of interpreting services."

4. Records: what you keep and how

Interpreters generate records that contain consumer-specific information: calendars, invoices, prep materials, consecutive-mode notes, mileage logs, and correspondence.

Illustrative Behavior 1.2 governs all of it: manage "data, invoices, records, or other situational or consumer-specific information in a manner consistent with maintaining consumer confidentiality (e.g., shredding, locked files)."

Practical standards:

Two competing obligations meet here. Tax and contractual rules require you to keep business records; confidentiality requires you to hold as little consumer-identifying detail as possible and to protect what you hold. The resolution is minimization: an invoice needs a date, a duration, a client, and a reference — not a diagnosis, a case description, or a narrative of what happened.

Where a hiring entity or a legal process specifies a retention or destruction requirement — a hospital's records policy, a court's protective order, a government contract — that requirement governs, and you need to know it before you accept the work. Signing an NDA or a records agreement you have not read is a common and avoidable exposure.

5. Insurance, entity structure and taxes

Not tested directly, but part of the business competence Tenet 6 assumes: professional liability insurance, an appropriate business structure, quarterly tax estimates, and mileage and expense tracking. RID offers a freelance insurance programme to members for precisely this reason.

6. The working-conditions half of Tenet 6

Tenet 6's Guiding Principle is unusual in the CPC because it asserts rights rather than duties: "Professional interpreters are entitled to a living wage based on their qualifications and expertise. Interpreters are also entitled to working conditions conducive to effective service delivery."

That framing matters for case studies. An interpreter who declines a four-hour solo assignment with no break, or who declines to work in an unlit room, is not being difficult — they are acting within an explicitly recognized professional entitlement, and Illustrative Behavior 6.3 obliges them to inform the parties and seek remedies rather than silently absorbing conditions that degrade access.