Change Order Billing

[mitviz]

Remember, you are not the one running the bill up. They are. Next time you are at an expensive restaurant, try getting them to throw the steak in with the price of a salad because in the end it's all food right?

hahahahahaha, i haven't laughed this hard all month!

[suurland]

If you always waive the charges for changes then they will continue to make changes over and over again, after all it's totally free! So ALWAYS charge for changes.

[glorybound]

Rule of thumb is, always charge!

[glorybound]

What about finals. Often, I render high resolution finals, but things get changes, so I have to render them again.

[Mokiki]

Did they approve the preview before the final? If yes you charge for changes.
It's is not that complicated. Anything that deviates from the initial agreement/contract and results in more work for you will increase the cost.

[glorybound]

Often, there will be a small change, that just takes minutes, but it'll take hours to render again.

[VelvetElvis]

No harm in billing for render time. You have to pay your electric bill right?

[glorybound]

Considering it lies up my computer, I lose if I can't continue to work

[Pixelcon]

Just gotta learn to do small changes quick and dirty in Photoshop.

[glorybound]

Yes, I do. I am a little OCD when it comes to that.

[Neilg]

We have a final comments stage before delivery where any changes that can be done in photoshop are free, anything that needs any kind of rendering is billed hourly. usually we dont end up doing the re-render changes as they are pointlessly minor.

billing isnt just good for making you money, it's also good when they decide they dont want those changes so badly after all and you get to move on.

[glorybound]

We have a final comments stage before delivery where any changes that can be done in photoshop are free, anything that needs any kind of rendering is billed hourly. usually we dont end up doing the re-render changes as they are pointlessly minor.

billing isnt just good for making you money, it's also good when they decide they dont want those changes so badly after all and you get to move on.

I think I'm going to do my first change order tomorrow. I have a guy going back and forth on things, using me to help his client make decisions.

[mitviz]

funny question, how do you guys bill clients hourly? i mean how does the client know you took 1 hour or ten hours?

[Neilg]

we have an agreed upon hourly rate in the contract for changes - when they ask us for a change we say 'we estimate this will take between 4 and 6 hours, at $x an hour the total cost will be from $y - $z, is this approved' and once they say yes we try to stay under.
if we go over, that's on us for providing a bad estimate and we bill the max we told them it could be.
essentially it's grouping all changes into a flat fee and offering some logic as to how we came to that number. we never say 'yeah we'll do those changes' and then invoice for the number of hours we spent. by saying we're billing hourly it helps stop them argue with our flat fee. Sometimes when given a large list of comments we'll break it up (all of this will take 2 hours. this single comment will take 4 hours etc) and they can choose which comments are most important.

at the end of the day it's just as meaningless as the difference between a $500 image and a $2500 image to clients, they just need to understand how you got there.

[mitviz]

that's what i was thinking because in the end then its a flat fee your just justifying how you reached to that fee which makes sense, its how most of us do it, but you do have people who do it differently, seen it a few times, they ask you to just tell them how many hours and you bill them which is weired but there are those clients