RE: Flat or Hourly Billing ??????

Some years ago I took over a system from one of the big eight accounting
firms. They had offered a system to one of the larger local lawyer firms
without a well defined specification. Big mistake!!!

It drug on and on. Finally the lawyer firm wanted a multi-user capability
which clearly was not in the original discussions.

This gave the accounting firm argument to turn it over to me who billed at a
hourly rate.

I never (read never, never, never) bid a flat fee unless there is a very
(read very, very, very) well defined specification. The user will always
envision far more than you do and usually they will have envisioned it after
the system is in place (read after thought) and they realized they need
more.

Mew thought, years ago Douglass aircraft had "specifications", in book form,
for their DC-8's, 9's and 10's. If anyone had ever purchases a straight
spec with no changes (SCN - Service Change Notices) Douglass would have lost
money. They made their money on changes, each billed at cost + profit.

Not sure how to fold this in, but it is a thought. One thought would be
good spec at flat fee with enhancements at hourly rate.

Hope this helps,

George

> From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net>
> Subject: Re: Flat or Hourly Billing ??????
>
> I charge hourly for almost all jobs - basically since it is hard to tell
> what variables you will hit later.
>
> For example, working on a Samba based printer services that provided
> postscript to PDF conversion and automatically converted it to a email
> attachement (mime encoded) and emailed to the email address as found from
> a Active Directory lookup. The customer also had someone working on their
> Active Directory and Novell Directory at the same time -- without letting
> me know about it and any downtime. Many unknowns can make you work more --
> and you should be paid.
>
> Sometimes for really big jobs I will quote a flat rate for the job -- and
> hope that it is fair for me (and acceptable to the customer).
>
> For small jobs, I tell the customer it is hourly but give them a possible
> range of time for the tasks and let them know I will confirm with them if
> it goes over the time.
>
> I also charge different rates for pre-paid remote work, pre-paid on-site
> work, remote work, and on-site work.
>
> Jeremy C. Reed
>

>                  open source, Unix, *BSD, Linux training
>                 http://www.pugetsoundtechnology.com/

>


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