Good morning everyone. I am thinking getting into freelance work,
which would be more of a side job to better build my skills. I am
wondering for starters the best approach of charging the customer.
Also, I have always believed in writing design specification and
technical specification before ever writing a line of code, should I
require this? Would the customer or I write the design spec and should
I charge for also writing the design spec if I'm the one writing it?
What is the best way to charge the customer; hourly or one base
contract price? Should I require design and tech specs or leave that
up to the customer? Should I write the terms of the contract or the
customer and should a lawyer look over the contract? Also, where is
the best place to view freelance jobs?
Thanks,
Michael

Take my suggestions with a grian of salt ...

BravesCharm wrote:
Be up front about the pricing. Set up an hourly fee. Keep very
careful documentation of each hour that you work and what you
accomplished. This way the customer won't feel like he's being
overcharged. As a side bonus, you get paid for the administrative
overhead of keeping track of time (rather than spending xx number of
minutes programming).

No, definitely don't require it. Explain your position to the employer
and if they agree with you, do it. If they don't want you to do it,
then don't do it. This is about what they want, not what you want, and
if they want you to embark on an ill-organized programming mission that
is going to take longer than necessary, go along with it ... because
you're getting paid by the hour.

This is a good question. It depends on the employer. If they are
clueless when it comes to programming you should ask what their needs
are and then design a spec to fulfill their needs. If, however, they
are a skilled programmer and are simply unloading a program or part of
a program on you because they don't have time for it, they may wish to
write the design spec.

My suggestion is hourly, but if it looks like something easy that isn't
going to take a lot of time, then choose a base contract price. I've
gotten paid $500 for ten hours of work ... that may not seem like a lot
to you people, but at the time I was in high school, and I challenge
anyone who hasn't even completed high school to get a job paying
$50/hr.

You should never require anything from the employer. They are
employing you and paying you money, so all of the work is done on their
terms. Maybe if you have so many contracts that you are busy 24/7 then
you can pick and choose to do only the ones where they leave the tech
specs up to you, but until that point, it's all about what they want.
Talk with them frankly and explain the benefits and downsides of having
them do the tech specs or you doing the tech specs.

I can't say I'm familiar with actual contracts since everything I've
done has been more informal than that (though I've always made sure to
get paid before I hand over any work I've done), but I think having a
lawyer look over a contract would be a good idea. Optimally what you
want to do is find a lawyer friend and you can exchange services, i.e.
you do a small program for him or setup his home network or whatever
and in exchange he looks over your contracts.

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that one. If you figure it out,
please tell me!

Thanks Cyde Weys your reply.

I think the first thing I need to do is find a customer. That is the
part i'm still not sure how to do? I guess I can start by calling tech
companies and asking if they have a need for freelance developers with
my skillset. I will also view some consulting firms websites to see if
they have anything interesting.

The other issue I might have is finding freelance work in my area(South
Carolina). I might be able to expand to NC(Charlette and the
Raleigh/Durham area(RTP)) and Atlanta. However, i'm not sure if I can
expand more because I do have a full time job and it would be hard to
take off work to meet with customers.

I think once I find a customer, find out their needs, get basic
requirments and write a proposal so they can either either accept or
denie the proposal. In the proposal, put hourly pay(or base pay,
depends on job I guess.), base pay for Design Spec(If they choose to
have one) and other areas.

I think when it comes to bugs, that is kind of iffy area. I understand
bugs is something that is not a design issue but a programming error.
However if they choose not to have a Design/Tech Spec, programming
errors can be caused because of no spec. So I think maybe if the
customer chooses no Design/Tech spec, I support the product for 30
days after approving the final release and 1 year
if they choose not to have Design/Tech Spec. Anything after that will
have an additional rate(Cannot support it for the rest of my life.).
Words from Microsofts EULA, the author of the program is not
responsible for error after the software has been approved by the
client, bug fixing is maintence, which is another contract altogether.

Anyway, maybe this is a good approach or maybe not? What is your
opinion? Now all I have to do is find a customer!

Thanks,
Michael