Wk24: getting your invoices paid (for us freelancers anyway)

half down on start, final payment on competition BEFORE it gets moved to their servers

@jckimble good advice!

@jckimble yep, always. It's just the little ongoing update stuff

@Jumpshot44 yep got screwed too many times and I eventually learned my lesson, fixing to close out one of my client projects this morning using that exact policy.

@biscuit do like I do, put a 30 day comeback policy in the contract. after 30 days if something breaks they gotta pay

@jckimble, where can I learn more about such things?

@Njabulo-Majozi if you mean contract wise you can either look for "software consultant contract" just read though the different subheadings and copy and paste them into your own, after you got one built I suggest bringing it to a lawyer to make sure it's enforceable. the other option is to think of the problems you have or think you may have, brainstorm ideas, and go talk to a lawyer to see what's enforceable and to write up the contract.

tl;Dr borrow from others, talk to lawyer

btw when I get a minute I'll reply again with the legal names and short descriptions of the parts that save my ass on dumbass clients

@jckimble yep, got that too. I think we both learned the same lessons by the sound of it

@biscuit probably so, clients tend to try anything to get out of paying usually. my favorite client was during Katrina, he thought he could get what was already done for free because of the hurricane knocking my power out. after that I added forced majecture to my contract, which explicitly states in the event of natural occurrences or hospitalization the delivery date is pushed back as long as I have reasonablely tried to meet the delivery date. this combined with the clause that states all code is my intellectual property until payed in full fixed any problems that could come from that in the future. also have clauses for non responders, payment stallers, etc. the lawyer I brought mine to was impressed by it, it also has a clause that if any part is decided invalid the rest is still valid. and the best part, it straight up says that no warranty is provided and they have to pay extra $50 per hour if something needs to be changed