Delayed Payment

  I was talking with a potential client, who ( as always ) wants me to work for less.  After some back and forth, we decided to work on a deferred payment plan.  I got some money now, and the rest as a percentage of his site's income.   I have already told him that I want a set date that he has to start paying me back regardless of the sites status (I am only contributing one portion of the site and have no control over the timeliness of the other portions)   I have already told him that I want a minimum monthly payback amount regardless of how much money his site makes.   I also want to mark-up my price due to the deferred payment.  The question I have is, how much should I mark it up?  I was planning on using 25%, but figured I would ask for other thoughts.   Is there anything else I should have built into the contract to cover my bases?   ( As a general note, does everyone run into these types of clients, or is it just me? ) -- Jeffry Houser | mailto:jeff@farcryfly.com Need a Web Developer?  Contact me! AIM: Reboog711  | Phone: 1-203-379-0773 -- My CFMX Book: <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072225564/instantcoldfu-20>; My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com

All I can say is my deferred payment hasn't been delivered from over a year ago :-( My only advice would be to make sure that contract is ROCK SOLID ;-) Personally, I'll never run another contract that way (but sometimes you have to do what it takes to get the KD). Cheers Bryan Stevenson B.Comm. VP & Director of E-Commerce Development Electric Edge Systems Group Inc. t. 250.920.8830 e. bryan@electricedgesystems.com --------------------------------------------------------- Macromedia Associate Partner www.macromedia.com --------------------------------------------------------- Vancouver Island ColdFusion Users Group Founder & Director www.cfug-vancouverisland.com >   I was talking with a potential client, who ( as always ) wants me to work ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- is ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I would get as much up front as you can, 30% - 50%, then a 25% to 30% markup on the rest. If this is an ecommerce site, another way would be to get a percentage of the sales. You could write some code that would keep you informed as to what the sites hits and sales are, so you could keep track. Regardless, I'd write some code, a CFC perhaps, that would report to you what the site stats are, so they don't try to mess with you. My $0.02 James   I was talking with a potential client, who ( as always ) wants me to work for less.  After some back and forth, we decided to work on a deferred payment plan.  I got some money now, and the rest as a percentage of his site's income.   I have already told him that I want a set date that he has to start paying me back regardless of the sites status (I am only contributing one portion of the site and have no control over the timeliness of the other portions)   I have already told him that I want a minimum monthly payback amount regardless of how much money his site makes.   I also want to mark-up my price due to the deferred payment.  The question I have is, how much should I mark it up?  I was planning on using 25%, but figured I would ask for other thoughts.   Is there anything else I should have built into the contract to cover my bases?   ( As a general note, does everyone run into these types of clients, or is it just me? ) -- Jeffry Houser | mailto:jeff@farcryfly.com Need a Web Developer?  Contact me! AIM: Reboog711  | Phone: 1-203-379-0773 -- My CFMX Book: <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072225564/instantcoldfu-20>; My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com

yup.  i always have clients that cry about the price. as a suggestion, have you tried a lease-type situation?  as in, if your cost to them is $1200, you break up the payments over 12,24,etc months with a % lease charge?  it seems to work fairly well for me. chris   I was talking with a potential client, who ( as always ) wants me to work for less.  After some back and forth, we decided to work on a deferred payment plan.  I got some money now, and the rest as a percentage of his site's income.   I have already told him that I want a set date that he has to start paying me back regardless of the sites status (I am only contributing one portion of the site and have no control over the timeliness of the other portions)   I have already told him that I want a minimum monthly payback amount regardless of how much money his site makes.   I also want to mark-up my price due to the deferred payment.  The question I have is, how much should I mark it up?  I was planning on using 25%, but figured I would ask for other thoughts.   Is there anything else I should have built into the contract to cover my bases?   ( As a general note, does everyone run into these types of clients, or is it just me? ) -- Jeffry Houser | mailto:jeff@farcryfly.com Need a Web Developer?  Contact me! AIM: Reboog711  | Phone: 1-203-379-0773 -- My CFMX Book: <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072225564/instantcoldfu-20>; My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com

lol yea i tried that once and got shafted good luck be careful Bill Wheatley Senior Database Developer Macromedia Certified Advanced Coldfusion Developer EDIETS.COM 954.360.9022 X159 ICQ 417645 ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Basically what you're doing is extending a line of credit to your client.  You should get the client's permission to run a credit report and get all the information you possibly can that you might need later to track him down, sue him, and collect.  If you see problems on his credit report, such as recent charge offs, consistently late payments, judgements, bankruptcies or any other red flags, I'd ask for collateral.  Ask him to give you the pink slip to his car or put a lien on his house until you get paid. All the typical terms of credit should apply.  He should be paying interest and when he's late he should be assessed late fees.  If you stick with typical terms and don't make up wild things, then I believe most courts would uphold the agreement.  And if he knows he's not credit-worthy, he'll understand when you reject his offer to pay you over time. You can also tell him to get a bank loan for the value of the contract and get paid that way.  If he's credit worthy, then a bank should have no problem extending him a line of credit.  If they don't approve him, that's another red flag.  If a bank won't approve him, why should you? There are also private financers that work with people like ourselves who do the same thing as banks, but are more willing to take the gambles because they charge higher rates for the credit.  Typically, these private finance companies will pay the developer on typical terms we're all used to with progress payments are lump sums.  Here's one such company that offers financing: http://www.lease-smart.com/ Ask for the business plan and read it.  If he doesn't have one, that's a major red flag.  If he DOES have one, does it seem to make sense to you? Generally, I'd turn away any client that didn't already have the money up front before starting a project.  That doesn't mean I'd ask for it all up front, but, I always make sure that a client has the ability to pay before I begin work.  And as a result, I've never been stiffed. ---mark --- Jeffry Houser <jeff@farcryfly.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072225564/instantcoldfu-20>; > My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com > My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com > >

----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- You might also try using an outsourcing management platform like ours over at oDesk.com.  We offer guaranteed payment for guaranteed work, with weekly processing and a single end-of-year tax form.  Our freelance providers get paid every week through whatever payment method they choose.  Check us out. Daryl James - oDesk http://www.odesk.com

Daryl.. I won't mention that the 3 posts you made all were basically ads for your service... But I will point out that when I did a search for ColdFusion, only 22 jobs showed up and IMHO, were of the quality you find at Guru (I want a full featured website for $200) or allot of bidders didn't have any ratings (only 2 of the posts came from people with ANY stars). Daryl James wrote: > You might also try using an outsourcing management platform like ours over at oDesk.com.  We offer guaranteed payment for guaranteed work, with weekly processing and a single end-of-year tax form.  Our freelance providers get paid every week through whatever payment method they choose.  Check us out.

Going into a credit-checking - elaborate contract type agreement has never really worked out for me. What has worked is the usual 50% up front and the balance on delivers + 30 days. I have learned to build in a mechanism that will render the application unusable if I do not supply an unlocking key after final payment has been received. This is how the major software companies do it, and they sure are better equipped to sustain a loss on one sale, but notice they are not willing to do that.  So why should you? Getting a bad deal is not better than no deal at all. ================================ This address is filtered through the open relay database at http://www.ordb.org and is virus scanned by ANTIVIR http://www.dwhite.ws mailto:doug@dwhite.ws ================================ |   I was talking with a potential client, who ( as always ) wants me to work | for less.  After some back and forth, we decided to work on a deferred | payment plan.  I got some money now, and the rest as a percentage of his | site's income. | |   I have already told him that I want a set date that he has to start | paying me back regardless of the sites status (I am only contributing one | portion of the site and have no control over the timeliness of the other | portions) | |   I have already told him that I want a minimum monthly payback amount | regardless of how much money his site makes. | |   I also want to mark-up my price due to the deferred payment.  The | question I have is, how much should I mark it up?  I was planning on using | 25%, but figured I would ask for other thoughts. | |   Is there anything else I should have built into the contract to cover my | bases? | |   ( As a general note, does everyone run into these types of clients, or is | it just me? ) | | | -- | Jeffry Houser | mailto:jeff@farcryfly.com | Need a Web Developer?  Contact me! | AIM: Reboog711  | Phone: 1-203-379-0773 | -- | My CFMX Book: | <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072225564/instantcoldfu-20>; | My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com | My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com | |

When consulting, I generally work on a 50% up front, 50% on completion. I have at times (sometime unwillingly) turned the 2nd half payment into a deferred, profit sharing, stock, merchandise swap, never see anything arrangement. Generally, though, I make sure that the first 50% covers what I really need to make on the project, the second half is always pure profit. That way, when the second payment is slow to arrive, I don't mind too much.   And I think every client I have talked to in the last 5 years wants some sort of "extra" arrangement. Every single contract I have NOT done this is on has caused me to regret it. Thank God for my day job. Jerry Johnson >>> jeff@farcryfly.com 08/26/02 11:22AM >>>   I was talking with a potential client, who ( as always ) wants me to work for less.  After some back and forth, we decided to work on a deferred payment plan.  I got some money now, and the rest as a percentage of his site's income.   I have already told him that I want a set date that he has to start paying me back regardless of the sites status (I am only contributing one portion of the site and have no control over the timeliness of the other portions)   I have already told him that I want a minimum monthly payback amount regardless of how much money his site makes.   I also want to mark-up my price due to the deferred payment.  The question I have is, how much should I mark it up?  I was planning on using 25%, but figured I would ask for other thoughts.   Is there anything else I should have built into the contract to cover my bases?   ( As a general note, does everyone run into these types of clients, or is it just me? ) -- Jeffry Houser | mailto:jeff@farcryfly.com Need a Web Developer?  Contact me! AIM: Reboog711  | Phone: 1-203-379-0773 -- My CFMX Book: <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072225564/instantcoldfu-20>; My Books: http://www.instantcoldfusion.com My Band: http://www.farcryfly.com