Contract Development Questions

[techyogi]

Anyone have experience with larger contracts? Need some advice...

[AnotherDesigner]

Techyogi,

Discussion of pricing is banned on these forums, as per the rules when you signed up. Any question about "how much should we charge" etc is banned, this is explicitally stated in the Terms of Use / Conditions of Service.

You should read the content on the following link for more information.
http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73852

[techyogi]

my original post asked about payment terms not pricing.

[sameer.net.in]

what i follow is

get 25% advance
display work on my server, and get another 50% ( at this phase i can shift to clients server if he asks so )
after that reviews and testing, finishing up and then remaining 25%

well this is my strategym you can develop your own suitable for your business.

[AnotherDesigner]

techyogi i wasn't having a go at you about the question, but you did say "what should I charge?" - that's a clear breach of TOS, hence I told you - wouldn't want you getting banned.

And if as you say you never mentioned 'pricing' - then why delete the original post and repost just "anyone have experience with larger contracts"?

[techyogi]

Another Designer - Thanks. My original post didn't say "What should I charge" anywhere.

I removed it simply because it asked too many questions and I wasn't getting any replies.

I also saw how talking about "payment terms" bordered on talking about pricing and I didn't want to piss anyone off or get kicked off the forum.

I am interested in getting input on contract development for a large contract; Specifically: payment terms, intellectual property, and software licensing. If anyone would be willing to share their 0.02$ on any of those issues I'd love the input.
Thanks.

[techyogi]

PS: I'm not (repeat - not) looking for any sort of pricing information.

[AnotherDesigner]

Techyogi, I understand the reasons for you editing the original post... sometimes people just don't know the answers unfortunately.

In terms of receiving payment, you should specifically state a deadline for payment in the contract. You should also issue the client with an invoice 14-28 days before payment is due. If payment is not made by the agreed (Contracted) date, then the website, designs and code should not be handed over to the client. Work can be hosted on your servers, to show them the work is complete, but it should not be 'live' to the World until you receive payment. This should also be specified in the Contract.

In terms of Intellectual Property: all designs of websites that you make are your own. The only thing a client 'owns' is the content - provided that they have supplied you with images, text etc to include on the site.
The design, look and 'feel' of the site belongs to you - unless the contract states "upon receipt of payment for the work, sole ownership of the design and code of the services provided will be handed over to you" or something similar.

Software licensing is, I believe, similar to the 'intellectual property' issues outlined above... Although for software licenses, you also need to include how many machines a client is allowed to install and run the program(s) on at any one time...

Personally, having no experience of working on large contracts, I would advise contacting a lawyer to discuss your concerns and issues. They'd be more than willing to draw up a template contract for you which could be used over and over with different clients, with perhaps an annual review to ensure clarity and conformity with current legislation.

Hope this has been of some help to you