That’s my company’s policy, basically we are saying to the customers that we wont get any payments or commit them to go ahead unless they see how the website we will deliver looks like. if you are confident about your work then you can do that. I had only 2-3 people baling out over 6 years so i don’t see this as a problem. It helps gets those few clients moving ahead if they are unsure of your work.
This way you show some work before asking for a payment which makes the client feel better about paying you anyway!
I don’t see why i would want to terminate a contract, if the client wants more functionality and there are problems in the negotiation for that extra work then we will simply finish the agreed functionality, await for full payment and then negotiate for the further work to be done.
On the web design contract we hand write down the important milestones along with dates and payments, so that you get the client to commit on a date for each payment.
I make it clear thought that project completion is when we complete our work mentioned in the quote, not when the client decides that the project is done. We go ahead and ask on full payment based on the date signed in the contract not when the client will say the project is done.
of course my quote and agreement could use a lot of improvement, but when you actually get into problems with clients and take matters legally then it might take over 1-2 year here in my country to sort thing out and you wont go legally based on the contract and quotes but based on the invoices you issued, that’s the law here, quote and contact could act as an evidence thought but they are not considered so important.
it terms of the law there are millions of things you can do to improve your contracts, but that depends on your country’s legal system.
One thing i found out recently is that its better to have a person guarantee, along with a company name since if they owe you money and go to court, they could easily bankrupt the company and there goes your money, but if you have a personal guarantee from the person who you are actually in talks for the project then you can sue them personally and you can definitely get your money.
Payment of Fees. Fees to us are due and payable on the following schedule, upon signing this contract and when the website have been constructed according to the client’s specifications and is published online’
As the site cannot be published online until the client approves and says so, and this clause says payment is due once the site is online, I would say this is being paid when the client decides - there’s no mention of payment by completion date in this clause. I’m sure it will never be a real problem, however clause 15 of your contract appears to be at odds with clause 18.
However, being half Cypriot myself, I’m well aware that contracts can be pretty much meaningless over there is Cyprus
don’t see a problem there, all projects are published on-line from our end once its done. Now if the client keeps the site set so its not visible to the public until they are 100% happy with the wording that does not mean that the project is not on-line or completed by us.
might remove that thought to be on the safe side
nice to hear that you are half Cypriot! i assume you are in the UK at moment as shown in your profile? Where about? i did my studies in the UK for 5 years.
you are right about clause 15 of my contract bring at odds with clause 18. Just removed clause 15 since it might not apply for some project anyway. clause 18 is all is needed since milestones dates and payments amount are written there for every project. Just added the wording “Fees to us are due and payable on the following schedule” above the table.
thanks for pointing this out shadowbox, i guess sharing does help others and also help you improve your work as well!
I’ve always seen a quote and a contract as being very different. A scope of work and a contract however, can be very similar.
When we quote, it’s normally one (or a few) high level numbers that reflect what the client has told us they want in the project, and what we’ve researched during the discovery phase.
A scope-of-work breaks down the complete project into sections, budgets per section, and defines exactly what is and is not included in the project.
I’ve only been in the business for a couple of years and most of my work to date has been for small groups who required “info” type websites (they are not selling anything). I have only once used an actual contract and it was not worded anywhere near as well as yours. Hope you don’t mind me “borrowing” from yours to improve on mine.
Good question. A complete quote look more like a contract
Usually, there is no price obligation for a quote. A contract is an active relationship between the service provider and the service taker and the parties has to abide by the terms laid by the quote or final statement of work.
