Dan Waters
df.waters at comcast.net
Sun Mar 2 08:19:14 CST 2014
Hi John, Yes ... Experience! The problem you described here would actually not be covered by a maintenance fee - they made a mistake and you should charge for your time to fix it. It might be that your program could do some verification on the text file before it's imported. Since what's in a text file is probably hand-typed, it's going to go wrong again. You can charge every time, but that gets annoying - if you can propose an improvement which would prevent that problem from happening again then everyone is better off. Be consistent with your customer about you charging them to fix their mistakes. And like Stuart said, charge a minimum of one hour. Good Luck! Dan -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Serrano Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 5:16 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] Maintenance Fees? Dan, thanks for the advice! Sounds like some experience of life has been through the ringer here... Nevertheless, you bring up a good point. where you said leave the app in the hands of their "developers" they don't have any, and seem to think every problem they encounter is something that should be corrected for free. For example, they had a text file they downloaded incorrectly and tried to import the file into the application and got an error and instead reviewing text file the quick answer was "well the program is not working correctly" Only after calling me and I noticed the file format was not the same. This is what has prompted my question, maintenance fee, however I like how you placed this, developed and walk away from it. On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 5:55 PM, Dan Waters <df.waters at comcast.net> wrote: > Hi John, > > Maintenance fees are for stuff you do to make minor (or sometimes > major) stuff to keep it running as expected. Generally, if you are > not charging for maintenance then you sold it and you walked away > leaving it in the hands of their developers. Maintenance would > typically be about 15% of what the selling price was, per year. If > you add more to the app later then the maintenance fee goes up. If > the app becomes mature at some point and needs little work then it > might make sense to drop the rate down. > > If you are doing improvements that they request then charge by the hour. > Except for the most trivial changes, give them a fixed price quote (be > sure you get this right or you could get hurt). Don't do 'estimate' > or 'not to exceed' quotes - they'll be making a decision based on the > wrong information, and you could work lots of hours for no pay. And - > every charge has a minimum time just for you to install the updated files. > > I got a suggestion once to negotiate a retainer over a period of a > year or so for improvement work. They would pay you an upfront amount > for X hours of work at a reduced rate. If they don't use it all > within a year it's yours - no refunds (but call them at the beginning > of the last quarter to let them know what's left). You get some > money, and they don't have to get authorization every time they want > some small improvement. I've never done this but it could be a win-win. > > Also, take a hard look at the job. If the scope of the job could > increase, then provide a quote only for what you do know you'll be > doing. If they want to go beyond that then you can give a subsequent > quote. Be sure to not get into a situation where you don't know where > they are going but they want an estimate to cover everything. > > I have a basic spreadsheet template I made up to help me list what I'm > doing to each object and how long it will take. This helps me to be > more accurate. If I end up within 20% - 30% then I figure I did > pretty well. > > Good Luck! > Dan > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John > Serrano > Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 12:36 PM > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving > Subject: [AccessD] Maintenance Fees? > > Hello, > > I have recently written an app in MS Access 2010. > Application went pretty easy, however I am getting calls about "tweaking" > the application or making enhancements. So I was discussing with them > maybe a maintenance fee? > > Does anyone charge past clients a monthly maintenance fee? or is it a > straight bill rate time number of hours you work on "whatever"? > If you do, can you give me a ball park range for the east coast of the > US of A. > PA to be exact... > > any help would be appreciated, thanks! > -- > John Serrano > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- John Serrano -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com