Comments on: What I Miss About Being Paid Salary

By: TheElder

TheElder — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 21:08:37 +0000

I’d agree on using fix pricing. That is what I do, hence the previous post. I anticipate bugs in my quote and they pay according to the agreement, not sticking to our agreement, or if they want to add to the project.

You may try the fix pricing with certain conditions. That may take some time stress off.

You are still going to have to get project done on time and be honest if you are going to miss the deadline. However, there is something about already having a set price that keeps them from being less forgiving about missing the deadline ( just a bit) :).

Good point Mr. Lee and Mr. Kerman.

By: Phillip Kerman

Phillip Kerman — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:14:40 +0000

Regarding whether to charge for bug fixing… provided that the client really does want the bug fixed, I totally charge for that time. I figure if I had programmed it in the first place without any bugs it would have taken longer. So, if it has bugs it’s because they saved money in the other part.

I also agree that fixed price projects solves much of this.

By: Tom Lee

Tom Lee — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:39:17 +0000

That’s one reason I went to lump-sum contracts. My promise is ‘the project is done when you’re happy with it’ and I get to take whatever time I need to do it. My clients are happy because they know they’ll be satisfied in the end, and I’m happy because I’m not on the clock.

By: TheElder

TheElder — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:15:37 +0000

I haven’t had EXTENSIVE experience dealing with BIG problems as you probably have. Most of the time the solutions that I provide are pretty simple.

However, for those times that aren’t as easy going where I have ran into problems. I’m usually honest.

Client: ‘How long will it take to fix the problem?’
Me: ‘Honestly, I do not know. This is a new issue for me, but I’m sure I’ll find the problem.’

Now……. depending on the client that may prompt:

‘You don’t know! You Ripoff CON!’

However, honesty is my best policy and so far the response has been.

‘Well, I trust you, I know you are going to figure it out. That’s why we hired you.’

That may sound fairy tale like, and maybe I haven’t got enough experience to get the response before that. I just try to make sure the client trust me to full extent and to expect problems before we step forward.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 15:41:39 +0000

the other part of that ‘how long should I spend on this?’ that can get sticky is figuring out how much of the debugging time is billable.. trying to be both fair to the client AND yourself, and sometimes having to accept (as Phillip pointed out) that the client really doesn’t care that it’s not perfect.. and you have to let that bug go out into the wild…