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Being paid by the discrete, incremental milestone assures the client you're not messing around and lets them know you expect to be paid after sign-off. Having

Being paid by the discrete, incremental milestone assures the client you're not messing around and lets them know you expect to be paid after sign-off. Having a net 10 or 15 with a ~3-4% discount is also a motivator to get paid sooner than a net 30. Furthermore, you need someone good at collecting receivables and collections, be it you or someone else, especially dealing with education, healthcare, government, nonprofits or the military... because it will happen in spite of your selectiveness and client rapport, because some large orgs think it's cool to not pay their bills.

hardwaresofton 8y ago
So this is what I do on project-based projects -- I write up spec sheets, attach them to the contract/work-order, and define some amount up front payment, and break down the rest in terms of 25%/50%/100% completion, as determined by items in the spec sheets. As far as collecting receivables, I've been either incredibly lucky or smart -- it's never been a problem for me (I am also no longer in the US -- I'm in Tokyo for now) -- clients have been big enough that this wasn't a huge problem, and whenever I sense it might be I demand a certain amount up front. I agree with what you've said, but how do you combat the estimation problem & scope creep? Discrete milestones are great but it's very rare that requirements don't change half way through a project -- what is the best way to handle that? The problem is that you often have to make the estimate with absolutely no idea what the existing conditions will look like, there's the never ending stream of "little fixes".