The complexity of a contract in a Relatude project varies a lot, depending on the scope of the project. The size of our partner companies vary a lot as well, from large multinational consulting companies to tiny web agencies. They often have very different experiences and needs from a contract. So our advice here is just a collection of tips that might apply to your needs.
- Always include a section that says that work outside what’s defined in the contract is extra, and specify an hourly rate for extra work. While most clients are reasonable, sometimes you get a problem customer that tries to force you to include extra functionality in a project for free.
- Never give a fixed price on work involving integrations with other systems. This is an area where it’s easy to ruin the profitability of your project, if you agree to a fixed price. When you’re integrating Relatude with another system, you don’t have total control over the process, and often you are dependent on other companies.
- If you’re doing integrations, make sure the contract specifies that the customer is responsible for finding people with knowledge of the system you are integrating with.
- Specify which browsers are being supported. Normally we recommend to split it into two categories: browsers which will get a pixel perfect rendering, and browsers which will get a working website, but they might have some visual inconsistencies (for example, most modern browsers support rounded corners using CSS. Older browsers don’t, and if the customer wants it to look the same, we recommend that you charge extra for it).
- If you’re not doing the design, specify a date when you must have the finished design, and if the design is delayed, your delivery date will also slip.
- Specify the format you want the design in. Sometimes the customer hires inexperienced developers that give you a pdf or a jpg. We highly recommend using Photoshop files for all design work.
- A project is often delayed. This can cause some friction with the client, even if the problem is slow responses from the client. Include a time limit they are allowed to use if you have a question or ask for clarification on an issue. If they go over that time limit a number of times, it’s much easier to argue your case if the project is delayed.
- In many proposals, you don’t know the budget allocated for a project. In such situations we recommend splitting the work into two sections: required and optional. All the items specified under required is the minimum of what is needed to complete the project. Items under optional are work that the customer can pick and choose according to their budget. The benefit of doing this is that the price for the required section in most cases is within the budget of the client. It’s much nicer for the client to be able to add stuff they want instead of getting a high price above their budget that includes everything, and then wondering if and what they can drop from the project.