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at do you put in your portfolio if everything you’ve ever done belongs to your old employers?
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Itemizing your quotes and estimates means laying out the quote so each part of the job can be seen separately. This is not only useful for your client who for example gets to see why a logo costs what it does, but is also good for you, as it will force you to think each part of the process out
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There are plenty of good time tracking applications around like SlimTimer, Basecamp and a variety of others
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Clients do this for many reasons – they might not understand what’s involved, might not know what you need to know, might be too busy or might just have gotten overexcited and started adding to the job midway. Whatever the reason, it is your job to pull them up.
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If there is something you are doing which is not in there, it is your right to ask to charge for that additional service
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Taking the time to make sure you have a set of terms that protect you and your client is important. When both you and your client have agreed on them it means you have a firm footing to work from. As a freelancer you will sometimes be asked to sign a contract or terms from your client as well, make sure you read them carefully as they often will have clauses to specify that they supersede your own terms.
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One way of determining your hourly rate is to work backwards and calculate how many hours you will be billing in a week, what your costs are and therefore how much you need to charge in order to meet those costs.
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For these reasons your hourly rate should generally be higher than you would first guess when you are starting out
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Namely a low rate gets you work, repeat work and most importantly referral work.
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but what you can do is raise your prices just a little with each successive wave of clients.
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Eventually you should find yourself in a position with lots of work and a reasonable rate.
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- Tax and Legal information. This might include your business registration, address and invoice record number.
- What needs to be paid. The final cost, often spelled out in an itemized fashion to match the quote.
- How to pay. It’s good to make this as easy as possible! Offer multiple options such as a bank transfer, an address to send cheques to and a service such as PayPal to accept credit card payments.
- The due date for payment. Giving your client a fixed date when payment is due is crucial to having something to point to if things go south. The length of time you give a client varies, and is typically anything from cash on delivery to 90 days.
Invoicing
Now it’s all very well to get your price right, but at the end of the day quotes don’t get paid, invoices do – most of the time. Getting your invoicing right can mean the difference between a healthy business and a defunct business.
So first of all, what is an invoice? It is simply the counterpart to a quote. Where a quote is a declaration of what the client will eventually pay, the invoice is the piece of paper that says ‘pay this amount now please’. The exact format of an invoice differs in different countries, but generally involves a few components:
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With a large job, you may wish to break it down into components and set what are called milestones, the completion of which will involve a partial payment. So for example you might split the job into three stages, then ask for a 25% deposit and a further 25% at the end of each stage. When you set the milestones make sure there are specific deliverables that the client will see at the end of each.
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You may also wish to estimate dates and provide a schedule of how it will happen.
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vantage to milestone payments are that your cash flow situation will be significantly more stable. Rather than waiting months for the job to complete and then waiting again another month for actual payment, you can be taking chunks of cash as you go. The other major advantage is that you decrease the chance of not getting paid for your work on a large job.
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On almost any job it is a good idea to take a deposit at the beginning.
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The deposit may range anywhere from 25% – 50%. Needless to say once you take a deposit you had better finish the job and finish it well.
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Invoicing and chasing invoices should have a very high priority in your to-do list.
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