Re: How do you calculate charges for contract work?

uvcceet_at_juno.com
Date: 10/26/04 

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 09:05:09 -0600

>"Copies are kept here in case they blow it and lose the ones I give them, but
>they don't get replacements for free :-)"

>So - how much do you charge for 'replacements'?

I am a lousy businessman, so for people who are ignorant and blatanly
unwilling to take care of their own software, I have charged them an hour
labor to go through my archives and find their software to put on another CD.
For other towards whom I have less animosity :-) I make sure to charge a bit
more on their next project to cover the aggravation factor.

Losing the docs might cost them $30, plus or minus where they are on my list.
I don't want to project the idea that I have a hundred customers and stick it
to half of them..... <g> Would that I did, but I am not their librarian so I
try very hard to make sure they understand that once I do a project for them,
I am not married to it, and it is up to them to take care of their own stuff.
When I did the first handful of jobs for clients, I kept the files myself, and
managed to lose them, so I quickly adopted the idea that they pay me to create
something, and when I am done, I give it all to them and its their baby, not
mine.

As a side note, google mail, or any of the other mail services that offer a
Gig of storage is a nice place to archive docuements and files. I just email
everything zipped and password protected, and then put it in the archive on
Gmail. Have to have other backups as well, but there is a ton of room for
stuff, and although Google could lose it or screw me, if my house gets wiped
out or something, I have copies of important stuff stored on the net. No
worse than a safe deposit box at the bank <shrug>

The hardest part of billing that I contend with is that I often do some of the
hardware design as well as the pcb layout, and designing hardware is harder to
pin down time used. Sometimes, I am brilliant :-) and get it done in a hurry,
and other times, I am, well,.... not so brilliant. I have not found a comfort
zone yet for hourly rates based on whether I am having a good day, or a bad
one, and I see no reason to penalize myself for having a brilliant rush of
inspiration and getting it done faster than I thought I would.

As with most businesses, the actual work is the easiest part. Its the selling
and running the business that makes it so hard, which is why I do not do as
well as I probably should.

John