How do you bill your clients?
by Jochen Vandendriessche
I use this lovely piece of software called billings, it gives me a nice overview of my clients, projects and the time I’ve spent on each part of their project. I’ve always given them a fixed price, sometimes I get ready early, on time and sometimes late. The fact is I’m like public transport or an airline company. My clients ask me how much something will cost, I give them a price and we’re set, the same as booking a flight from Brussels to London, you pay the price and you get there, maybe you’re early, maybe you get some delay, but the price stays the same.
But maybe, you’re like a taxi driver, you give them an estimate and if the client agrees you start working. If you deliver on time the pay less, if the job takes a little longer, the customer pays more. I believe this is the most fair way to work, unfortunately web development seems to be in the dark zone for most people, as if we just click buttons on some kind of magic box that does all our work.
So how do you bill your clients?
Comments
I switched over from a project based price to an hourly fee and I’m so much happier. If you work with a fixed price you have to outline in detail what the scope of the project is. Writing such an offer consumes a lot of time and there will always be details you forget to include which can become subject of discussion with your client later on.
By working by the hour you no longer have to limit the number of feedback rounds and if the project grows out of its scope you don’t need to renegotiate. It is important to track down in detail what you are working on every hour. When your client has the impression you work to slow you can show him what you’ve been doing all these hours. It is also important to communicate how much hours you spent (eg. on a daily base) so your client can keep track of the budget.
Since I started working by the hour I had less discussions with my clients about the cost of a project. I have the impression that companies who pay by the hour tend to be better clients. Companies who pay a fixed price try to get the maximum out of it. If you are not strong enough to say ‘no’ then you’re spending more hours than estimated.
I currently use Freshbooks and Roninapp to track my hours and tasks and to sent invoices.
It depends really. I tend to work fixed-price, too; I don’t see why my client should pay extra if I miscalculate. However, when the client suddenly requests additional features after the proposal has been approved, common sense dictates that I’ll have to charge extra. In those cases, I usually keep track of my extra / non-planned hours, and charge those based on my hour rate — unless the client prefers an additional proposal, of course.
My common sense tells me that fixed-price is a good way of billing, but as I look at other professions, I see that most of them give an estimate and charge you for the time they’ve spent on your project. E.g my accountant charges me on an hourly base, which I totally understand because if I have a lot of paperwork for him, he will spend more time on it.
I think Bart has a good point on that one, because If clients know they pay for the time you spend on their project, they will be less “dictating”. Now they now it’s a fixed price, so I feel sometimes they sneak in little changes or extra features with excuses as “yeah, I said X but what I meant was Y…” And maybe the “you know, build it, we’ll have a look and let you know what to change”-factor of projects will be a bit lower…