[thelist] RE: aardvark- Client Payment Percentages

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Ah, you need to be keeping time and materials (ie stuff you
buy on behalf of the client like hosting, apps etc) separate.

Unless you're sure of the client's credit-worthiness, you
should bill the materials cost up front - that way if something
does go wrong, you're not left holding the baby.

I can also second keeping timesheets, even on a fixed-cost
job. If you don't know how much it cost you to do the work (as
well as how much you get paid), how can you work out whether
it was worthwhile doing, and therefore adjust future fee schedules?

Also, Aardvark's capped fee suggestion is a good one. In my
CGI-scripting days (mostly just installs of standard scripts like
things like robust form->email scripts), I *always* billed this way,
with the capped fee being at the "Assuming it's a real pain" level.
That way, I almost never came close to that level (most clients
were on well-run, vanilla BSD/Apache/Perl hosts, which installed
like a dream), and the client pretty much always had a nice surprise
against the budget.

This helps gain you repeat fees, particularly if you're subcontracting.

Cheers
Martin




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Subject:  RE: [thelist] RE: aardvark- Client Payment Percentages



> I too, have a bit of a problem with the 30/30/rest thing in a
> contract, only
> because of the upfront charges possibly being more than 30% of
> what I actually
> need to purchase at the start of the project--say a store script
> or something.

Isn't this something that you could figure out beforehand? I think you need
to set the next payment at the point in which 30% is used up. For me, it's
usually around Interface Design approval.

Also, even if you're project-pricing something, you should keep diligent
track of your time. I keep my own timesheet and then I can tell how much of
the total that gets burned up when. Helpful for adjusting on the next
project.



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