Question How To Quote/charge For Work Done

JamesBowen

JamesBowen

19+ years progress programming and still learning.
So today I did some development for a client who was in desperate need of application enhancements and I never got round to actually quoting them for the actual cutting of code. My initial problem is that I spent more time reading 3rd party documentation and doing a proof-of-concept to see if my theory will work.

So I spent about 8~10 hours over 3 days just doing research and development aka Development Exploration and only 4~5 hours of actual grunt work development.

How do I charge the client? Do I change the client for all of my time at a fixed rate or charge a high rate for the actual code-cutting hours?

I don't what to come across too high for what turned out to be a relatively simple program but there was a lot of rabbit hole research.
 
Cringer said:
How much value is there to the customer in the work done?
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Answer: LOTS!! They upgraded their production systems from 32bit to 64bit and hey presto, OCX stopped working. I could charge them mega $$$, but I feel that's exploiting there situations and it goes against my morals. But, I would want to be paid a fair price for the effort I did. If the majority of my time was just reading pages & pages of PDF documentation.

Thinking about it.... if I did not put in such effort reading the documentation, I would most likely not had my "Urika" moment
 
Agree you shouldn't overcharge them for it. But if there's a lot of value to them, then just be honest with them. Tell them the hourly rate, tell them how long it took, and give them a breakdown of the time spent. That's my opinion anyway. That way if they ask for work again in future, it's easy to charge the same rate.
 
The first problem is that you should have given them a quote up front ;)

Aside from that... all of the time that you spend reading about, talking about, thinking about and working on the problem should be billable. That includes the customer wasting your time jumping through hoops getting access to their systems, filling out paperwork, waiting in the lobby to be let into the building, sitting in on all day conference calls with 30 people or just plain twiddling your thumbs because they insist that you be there but they have nothing for you to do. Not just the time spent coding the solution.

I will make exceptions to that if:

1) *I* wasted time on things that I should have known better than to be doing.

2) I spend time on my own initiative to investigate something unrelated to the task at hand.

There are many variations on stories about people (usually some crusty old-timer) who are called in to deal with some major problem. They take a look, do something simple and then charge a large sounding fee (which is, however, a fraction of the money the problem was costing). The customer balks. The old timer points out that they are paying for his years and years of experience not the 2 minutes worth of "work" that he actually did. And that if the customer prefers he would be happy to undo the work for free...
 
In many ways we are our own worst enemies when it comes to this stuff.

Many people basically bid against themselves when trying to come up with billing rates (or salaries). Their opening position is already pretty much the lowest amount they can possibly get by on.

And they forget that recruiters are being compensated by the employer. Which has a very predictable impact on the recruiter's loyalties and incentives.

And then they complain that there are no (good) jobs in this marketplace. Meanwhile employers complain that they cannot find (good) people (but never say the part about "at the ridiculously low wage we want to offer"). That's sort of what you would expect if you set it up so that wages spiral downwards...

If a prospective customer only cares about the lowest imaginable hourly rate I happily point them towards other providers and move on. I don't have time to waste arguing with that kind of thinking.

Progress is a niche market. Resources, especially good resources, are very scarce compared to larger markets. You do not need to sell yourself low. In fact if you go low you will only be pressured to go lower. If you are any good at all you should be commanding a premium - but to do that you need to say NO to exploitive offers. And you need to be prepared to stand up for what you are really worth.
 
It's quite interesting looking at the starting salary offerings of OpenEdge jobs in the UK at the moment. There have been some very big increases in what people are prepared to pay.
 
Thanks Tom for your input. Highly Valued.

You were so right about setting my hourly rate up front, but the client was desperate for a working solution and the work was thrust upon me. Until the end of the month, I'm still a paid employee and I have had not even started to think about what I should personally change at an hourly rate.

I have cost figure in my head and I will break down to for the client, so the end $$$ figure is not so shocking.
 
Cringer said:
It's quite interesting looking at the starting salary offerings of OpenEdge jobs in the UK at the moment. There have been some very big increases in what people are prepared to pay.
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Yes, you are right. I too have seen this as well. It's highly tempting to move back to the UK sooner than I'm planning to. But at the moment I'm relying on doing remote development work for the interim.
 
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