IT Employment

Ask something
Discussion Locked

What to charge

0 helpful
1 reply

by hyperspaz

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I'm an independant consultant (if you could call it that) and lately I've been finding that a lot of jobs I take, take a lot longer than I originally thought they should. They all have involved hsving to correct other problems before I can correct the problem I was called in to repair.

I usually state an upfront charge based on how long I think it will take to correct the problem but then It takes much longer due to the unforeseen circumstances.

I'm wondering what I should do in these cases, charge for the entire time I'm there or for the anticipated work that I stated up front? Or just change my wording to something that reflects the fact that there could be a fair bit extra time and therefore money involved?

1 reply

by timwalsh

On the one hand, you don't want to give away significant amounts of your time for free. On the other hand you don't want to gain the customer's ill will (and a bad reputation) by blindsiding him with unexpected chages.

Try this appoach:

Make your guesstimate (include time for a system asessment); state the assumptions that your guesstimate is based on (functional system with no apparent glitches); before making any changes, conduct an thorough assessment of the system and note anything that would cause serious revision of the guesstimate; take your findings to the customer and ask for his authority to proceed based on your new quesstimate. If the customer doesn't want to spend the extra money, charge the customer for the time you did spend and leave him a copy of your findings. Keep the customer in the loop as to what is going on.

No customer is going to be happy when you present him a bill for twice your original estimate with no explanation until after the fact. This is a bad way to build a customer base.

Of course, no customer is going to be happy when you ask for more time/money anyway, but at least you are showing your customer the courtesy of an option to continue, before you make any changes that leave him no choice but to allow you to continue.

This discussion is closed to new replies.