4 ms·

I have a couple long term, open-ended contracts right now that I'm consulting on, billing out anywhere from 10-40 hours per week on each. The deliverables are

I have a couple long term, open-ended contracts right now that I'm consulting on, billing out anywhere from 10-40 hours per week on each. The deliverables are frequent, communication is open, I invoice every two weeks with detailed line items, and get paid within 7 days. There are no up front deposits - honestly, it goes against my own values, I'm uncomfortable getting paid for work I have yet to do. The terms are clear in the contracts with work stoppage clauses and all. It's worked well going on about 6 months of doing this. Maybe I'm lucky, and maybe this is the nature of doing long-term gigs or just having clients you mesh well with, but is this really all that unusual?

nathanbarry 14y ago
I have one client I work for 5-10 hours a week consistently. Absolutely love doing work for them. They always pay on time and things work great. So I totally know where you are coming from. Basically find great clients and treat them really, really well and fire your bad clients.
- schoash 14y ago
  But sometimes it takes a while until you find the right clients. I learned that you have to be very cautious. One of the problems is also, that some clients are not realistic enough, they are very optimistic, which may lead to not being able to pay you.
AlexDanger 14y ago
I've consulted in this manner and I'm surprised this isnt the norm. It reduces risk for both parties. The client is seeing tangible results sooner and you're minimising potential losses due to non-payment (for whatever reason).
- brandall10 14y ago
  Exactly... at least if you're doing agile development, it seems that you should get paid in an 'agile' way :)
  - mikeleeorg 14y ago
    For many engagements, we required both an upfront deposit and invoiced payments every two weeks. In addition to the benefits you guys cited, billing often can also help manage scope creep - though I know some agencies thrived off the additional income from change requests. I agree that it's possible to build a roster of clients that always pay you, but when you start casting your net wider (which we did), you encounter a greater variety of clients. We grew to a team of 20+ developers and aimed to keep our pipeline near 100% utilization. With that said, we only had a handful of clients that didn't or couldn't pay. This was early in our existence and we learned quickly how to avoid, and dump, bad clients.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
sneak 14y ago
> I'm uncomfortable getting paid for work I have yet to do. But you're happy furnishing work to people they've yet to pay for?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- brandall10 14y ago
  In these small increments for projects of this scope, absolutely. For smaller things I have yet to cross that bridge, but honestly I'm going to try to steer clear from that type of work unless it comes from trusted connections.

nathanbarry 14y ago

I have one client I work for 5-10 hours a week consistently. Absolutely love doing work for them. They always pay on time and things work great. So I totally know where you are coming from. Basically find great clients and treat them really, really well and fire your bad clients.

schoash 14y ago
But sometimes it takes a while until you find the right clients. I learned that you have to be very cautious. One of the problems is also, that some clients are not realistic enough, they are very optimistic, which may lead to not being able to pay you.

AlexDanger 14y ago

I've consulted in this manner and I'm surprised this isnt the norm. It reduces risk for both parties. The client is seeing tangible results sooner and you're minimising potential losses due to non-payment (for whatever reason).

brandall10 14y ago
Exactly... at least if you're doing agile development, it seems that you should get paid in an 'agile' way :)
- mikeleeorg 14y ago
  For many engagements, we required both an upfront deposit and invoiced payments every two weeks. In addition to the benefits you guys cited, billing often can also help manage scope creep - though I know some agencies thrived off the additional income from change requests. I agree that it's possible to build a roster of clients that always pay you, but when you start casting your net wider (which we did), you encounter a greater variety of clients. We grew to a team of 20+ developers and aimed to keep our pipeline near 100% utilization. With that said, we only had a handful of clients that didn't or couldn't pay. This was early in our existence and we learned quickly how to avoid, and dump, bad clients.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

sneak 14y ago

> I'm uncomfortable getting paid for work I have yet to do. But you're happy furnishing work to people they've yet to pay for?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
brandall10 14y ago
In these small increments for projects of this scope, absolutely. For smaller things I have yet to cross that bridge, but honestly I'm going to try to steer clear from that type of work unless it comes from trusted connections.