quoting

[findtim]

I thought I wasn't to bad at quoting for a dev job but "scope bleed" is bleeding on 1 job right now ! (ecom store)

I quoted and started the build but it just kept getting bigger and bigger so I just had to ask for more money, ( I NEVER have to do this but it was just outside the original scope ) and he paid, funny thing was on my bank statement it said " website final payment" which I found interesting.

a few weeks ago he goes " ohhh yeh and I need this.........." so I said , ok that should not be a problem........ because I just want to get this job over and done with but last week he says " ohhhhh, and that needs to do this and this..........."

another few days work !!!!

how does everyone else work? I'm finding myself now making longggg lists for T&C's for the future I just dislike that, I have an email which I list the job structure and they come back and say "yes" , but then add and add.

I suppose I have to stop it early
tim

 

[Ashman]

Seems like your client paid for items he thought were inclusive in the final price. If you quote for a job you have to be very specific of what you're providing.

Clients have expectations of what they want but do not generally have the vocabulary to describe it technically. That's why you need to be specific about what you are selling.

 

[findtim]

sorry for the delay of reply and I agree.

I didn't have the problem until I started doing more and also more technical stuff that's when its now hit home.

I managed to get more money off the client, thankfully, and now he has added in more work as well so I think HE thinks that the extra payment was for whatever he wants but it was actually for what I have done .

we are down to the finallllllllll stages of this complex ecom script but its costing me time and money for the programmer so I'm just going to have to chalk it up to experience and loose some money.

I did make profit, just not as much as I should have.

its a real lesson to learn early, thus my post for others to revisit what they do, and hopefully I will have something to show for it soon.

tim

 

[Ashman]

I did make profit, just not as much as I should have.


tim

How do you work out your profit?

Do you take into account your personal hours worked when calculating your profit or is it just income - contactor fees?

 

[findtim]

my dad always says " if you sell a pencil for 1 cent more then you bought it for did you make a profit? no, first you spent time to go buy it, then to try and find the person to buy it, if you made improvements to the pencil then did you have expenses? how long did that take, how long did it take to find the buyer? "
what MOST people do is not calculate this in their selling, they go "yippee, i made $200" but they spent 50 hours making the sale or building the website so they worked for $4 an hour.

for dev work you just need to set an hourly rate you are happy with, anything under that is not making a profit. when jobs dragggggg out you start losing but in this case i bought it back into profit by getting the client to cough up more money, i would say i'm only $150 down on my expectationon on a $5K job so i can cop that.
but to really answer your question i will try to quote from a past mentor of mine:
"start at the end" , how much money do you want to make this year? divide it by how many days you want to work this year ( normally 200+ ) then divide it by the hours you want to work.......... thats your hourly rate.
NOW........... are people going to pay you this amount ?
because the longer you avoid doing this calculation the more your hourly rate rises and its a negative spiral.
this is a forumula for "hands on" dev work, then you can go 2 ways, get others to do it all for you or create passive income so it works whilst you are asleep........... parking ? adwords, affiliate sites etc.
for me i'm chosing the mcdonalds, woolies method which is employ people and get more done in more places and adding the passive income of hosting and domain renewals.
whilst building my own hungry jacks and coles on the sideline.

maybe i'm wrong, time will tell.
tim

 

[FirstPageResults]

You can write a itemised spec doc at the start of the project which details everything the client is getting, and then get them to sign off on it (as you mentioned), but it's annoying/time consuming and they generally ignore it anyway. It can be good to have so that you can refer to it when scope creep gets out of hand though.

Previously I have found it works better to quote a ballpark figure and then charge by the hour with regular installments. If they don't intefer then you should be able to deliver within that ballpark. Inevitably they will change the scope - at this point you should provide a seperate quote for the additions, otherwise they may walk all over you.

Also I would always try and encourage the client to stick to the original specifications, and coerce them to wait until the project has been delivered (and paid for) before making additional changes.

I have found to work fairly well in the past.

 

[petermeadit]

I have worked along similar lines FirstPageResults. The problems I have found with providing a quote that cannot be extended is that it usually goes over. Unless the client is experienced with these kinds of projects, they will not really know what they want until they get it. So when they see something that is kind of like what they want they will want to keep changing things until they feel happy about what they are getting.

Frequent and pleasant communication with the client about costs will help. Also regular invoicing for smaller amounts more frequently, helps the client see what they are paying for.

Saying this, I think it really comes down to client/provider relationship. Communication is the key, setting the client expectations. Helping them understand what is possible and how much work it will take.

You can write a itemised spec doc at the start of the project which details everything the client is getting, and then get them to sign off on it (as you mentioned), but it's annoying/time consuming and they generally ignore it anyway. It can be good to have so that you can refer to it when scope creep gets out of hand though.

Previously I have found it works better to quote a ballpark figure and then charge by the hour with regular installments. If they don't intefer then you should be able to deliver within that ballpark. Inevitably they will change the scope - at this point you should provide a seperate quote for the additions, otherwise they may walk all over you.

Also I would always try and encourage the client to stick to the original specifications, and coerce them to wait until the project has been delivered (and paid for) before making additional changes.

I have found to work fairly well in the past.

 

[m8e]

For the vast majority of my software dev work I stopped doing fixed price quotes a decade ago because of feature creep eating into the profits.

I do similar as the guys above,
quote a ballpark range and log my time using Allnetic TimeTracker
http://www.allnetic.com/working-time-tracker/

Allnetic is great for logging but it only exports CSV so I wrote another program to generate nicely formatted timesheet report.

I send an invoice every so often, with just one line "xyz development as per TimeTracker report attached".

For larger projects, I also combine this with project management software, either Asana or my own server's installation of ActiveCollab to document the tasks required to be completed, so the client can see as they are marked off (or require further clarification, or get expanded upon) and tie the time logger comments loosely to the current task at hand.

 

[nt81]

Some developers that I know have had the same scope creep issues - and now include in their package (and quote) "2 hours" worth of revisions after the site goes live.

This seems to be working very well, covering the minor revisions. If the time is not used, it is refunded.

Otherwise, anything past that two hours of extra revisions gets billed at the full hourly development rate.

Massive drop in scope / feature creep ever since