Webdesign, Getting Paid

Shanley

I recently designed a new website for a reputable company and they were happy with the final design.

Only thing is once I started asking for money they keep asking me to add more content or change content (was happy to do this the first three times)

Was just wondering if there is anyway of preventing this happening in future?
Can I ask for the money up front or does that look bad? Some guy was telling me to get a policy done up which stipulates the cant keep coming back to me unless they pay a fee for editing it? Any ideas where I might find a policy like this on the net, cant really afford to get one drawn up by a soliciter

Thanks for your help!
Shanley

NickNolte

Shanley wrote: »

Was just wondering if there is anyway of preventing this happening in future?

Use a contract of work and stipulate in it that the client has X number of iterations of the design and Y number of content reviews. Anything additional is costed at an hourly rate.

Shanley wrote: »

Can I ask for the money up front or does that look bad?

Yes. You should always get a deposit before you begin any work.

Shanley wrote: »

Some guy was telling me to get a policy done up which stipulates the cant keep coming back to me unless they pay a fee for editing it? Any ideas where I might find a policy like this on the net, cant really afford to get one drawn up by a soliciter

That's exactly what you need to do. You should always have a contract of work, signed by yourself and your client, which protects each of you from misadventure by the other. You should never get yourself into a situation where you're making an unlimited amount of changes for the client because they're faffing about or can't make their mind up about something. Your contract should also clearly state your exact remit on the project, estimated start and end dates and a date for final payment to be made. If you're working with someone who you think may be difficult, you can even stipulate that an additional 5% will be due for each week that payment is late.

It all sounds pretty harsh but once you've been burned a few times, you make sure it doesn't happen again.

The only thing is that you will need to go to a solicitor to you have your contract checked and re-worded for water tightness. It'd only be a few hundred Euro though and it's well worth it.

tricky D

I make sure to get 25-50% up front. The smaller the job, the larger the up front payment which is non-refundable. This is very effective in concentrating the minds of both parties.

ScumLord

Would you be able to change all the passwords and threaten to shut the site down with a notice of nonpayment?

CuLT

ScumLord wrote: »

Would you be able to change all the passwords and threaten to shut the site down with a notice of nonpayment?

Jaysus, be careful with threatening businesses, especially if you're (and I don't mean to accuse) not paying tax for your work, which is something a lot of amatuer designers/developers "avoid".

They can threaten right back in that scenario.

PCPhoto

would it not be the best thing for the webdesigner to do - if they have not paid.

(change password) .... then once payment is received - change it back.

ScumLord

CuLT wrote: »

Jaysus, be careful with threatening businesses, especially if you're (and I don't mean to accuse) not paying tax for your work, which is something a lot of amatuer designers/developers "avoid".

They can threaten right back in that scenario.

how can you pay tax on money you don't have? I'm sure there's no business that would like to have "site shut down due to client non payence" (according to my spell checker thats not a word but you get my drift).

The Corinthian

Shanley, you are discussing two issues here: feature creep and bad debts.

Feature creep is generally a result of misunderstanding between the supplier and client, and the client chancing his/her arm to get more than their money's work. Unfortunately, there is only one way of dealing with this and that is with sign off's - that is that the client signs off on functionality specifications and/or design concepts before you do any work. You also need to work this into any work contract with them, so that once delivered they have a certain amount of time to seek changes (e.g. 7 days) or report bugs (e.g. 3 months), before you consider the request billable and outside the terms and billing conditions of the contract (i.e. you will bill as planned for the project and bill separately for the additional work).

One approach I have used it the 40-40-20 breakdown. 40% of the project estimate on exchange of contracts. 40% on delivery as per the, unamended, spec and 20% (plus extras) upon debugging, change requests, etc. This too can limit your exposure as it means you get 80% of your work paid before a single change request needs to be entertained.

If you don't have anything in writing at present, then I suggest you broach the subject before he asks for additional changes. Be direct but fair.

The second issue is bad debts. Asking around to get a feel for the reputation of the client is a good idea. Where they have a poor reputation, I have doubled my price, literally, and sought 50% up front. More often than not they'll pay, because no one else is willing to deal with them.

The biggest protection against bad debts though is that they will need you in the future. If they will, then there should be little danger (at least they won't actively try to stiff you). If not, then hold on to the site assets until full payment is made. If you control the hosting (and domain name) this is naturally a lot easier.

Some go so far as to introduce logic bombs in their code that go off after a few months, bringing the site down. The client will immediately call you, at which point you tell them that you'll be happy to fix the problem once they pay that invoice that is 60 days overdue.

But sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. I've had two bad debts in the last 15 years, and when that happens it becomes a question of legal brinkmanship. Unfortunately the Irish legal system is such that it can actually cost more to retrieve debts of under €5,000 than the the debt itself. So if below a certain amount, you may just have to write it off.

But that's life, and as long as you cover yourself as best as you can, it won't happen too much and work out as well below 3% of your turnover.

Sully

In my own experience, sometimes a contract isnt worth very much in terms of getting paid or getting content for the website. Iv experienced lengthy delays in payment and people distancing themselves from work completed for them, even when in on a contract. It takes a lot of calls, emails and registered letters before anything gets done.

Kila

Hi,

Having worked both for myself and for companies doing web design, I can say from my own experience that feature creep can be a big problem. It can end up pushing launch dates back, raising stress levels, and leaving everyone feeling a bit annoyed.

As has been said, one way to combat this is to have an outline signed off before you begin work. Have a meeting (or more if necessary), draw up an outline of what you believe the product will be, what it should do, etc., and at that stage, ask if there are any requirements that have been missed by the outline. Then, develop to the outline. You may, at the end of the project (and at your discretion) decide to add an extra feature or make changes, but these will definitely fall in the category of "extra" because you both have a copy of the signed off brief detailing exactly what the project should be at delivery.

I'm not saying that you should be a total hardline rulemonger and never agree to do anything extra, just that having a spec beforehand can help you decide what is, and isn't, too much, and can help you to defend this position, because the client has signed off on the spec beforehand.

There's a great blog written by Contrast about a book called The Pragmatic Programmer (both of which I recommend reading) which says it quite well - you should aim to gently exceed expectations. Not meeting expectations is considered a failure, and won't look good on any record. Overly exceeding expectations is great, but can lead to feature creep problems, and also to unrealistic expectations in future work. Maybe the first time you could afford to stay up all night and give the client those 3 extra features he didn't even really ask for, but that's not to say that you'll be in a position to do so every time, and if you're not able to do so next time, you go from overly exceeding expectations to not meeting them.

Contrast blog: http://www.contrast.ie/blog/gently-exceeding-expectations/

While it can be hard to look for closure, and payment, when you're just starting out, it is important that you do so, because what you are building is your own reputation within the business community. It is unfortunate, but true, that among SMEs in Ireland, late or non-payment isn't uncommon. Many companies will chance their arm, and drag out payment until the last possible moment, refuse payment on the basis of minor technicalities, etc. And, as you're also a small business, you can't really survive without people paying you. When you're starting out, it's important that you don't end up with a reputation of being someone who won't chase after payment, who will allow feature creep, and who will tolerate non payment. Again, moderation is the key, it's just important that you don't go to either extreme. It is better to get a policy in place now for all of these things (change requests, payment, etc.) and stick to it within reason. That way, all of your clients know that you'll expect a percentage up front, that you may allow for change requests as long as they are reasonable, and that you are willing to maintain the website for a fee (be it a per-change basis, or a regular retainer).

I hope some of that helps.

The Corinthian

Kila wrote: »

As has been said, one way to combat this is to have an outline signed off before you begin work. Have a meeting (or more if necessary), draw up an outline of what you believe the product will be, what it should do, etc., and at that stage, ask if there are any requirements that have been missed by the outline. Then, develop to the outline. You may, at the end of the project (and at your discretion) decide to add an extra feature or make changes, but these will definitely fall in the category of "extra" because you both have a copy of the signed off brief detailing exactly what the project should be at delivery.

While I agree broadly with what you're saying, I would caution on over-reliance on 'outlines' in larger or more complex projects.

There's a reason that a requirements document differs from a specification. While the former will give you the basis of what you need to build, it still remains very much open to interpretation. The latter is, by definition, not.

I saw a dotcom start-up fail because they did the requirements stage and decided to skip the specification stage, deciding to save money and time and use the requirements document as a de facto specification. Naturally, the developers interpreted these requirements and this interpretation was widely different to what the customer ultimately was expecting. This resulted in change requests mid-development, hacked code, delays, missed milestones and ultimately in the VC's pulling the plug.

Of course, detailed specs are not essential in all projects, but in some you would be foolish to start without them there and signed off.

Kila

Hmm, I suppose to be clear, what I was really getting at was that having written documentation agreed upon before project start can be a really helpful thing when you get to project end (and your client thinks there's more to it). I don't think that the entire document chain (oultine, requirements, spec, etc.) is necessary for every project, so when I say outline, I suppose I just mean whatever level of documentation is required so that you and the client are both on the same page with what will and won't be done.

It's not a solve-all, but I think it does help, even to gather your own thoughts and guide your own work.

Eoin

This doesn't so much like feature/scope creep, but the age old problem of getting the content of the site finalised. This holds up a website more than any other factor in my experience.

If you're at all handy with any of the open source CMS systems and can plug it into the site quickly, then it's often worth while bundling it with the price of the web-site design, sending them a logon and leave them to do the content. The job is done at that stage.