Can you clarify what you mean by "even if you are over budget" ?
What if you estimated all of the features, built them, and then the client comes back with a bunch of new features and changes that would require a new contract. Do you do them for free?
What about ongoing support? My contracts give the client one week to test any features, and once that week has elapsed without any issues, the contract is considered "complete" and they have to pay the other 50%. Would you be for or against that practice?
I guess I am wondering where the balance lies between protecting yourself and protecting your reputation.
Unfortunately, clients (just like all human beings) are squishy and forgetful. Your reputation can get damaged through no fault of your own. When do you decide to let someone go because their expectations don't match the contract they signed? Is the penalty to your reputation so high that it's never worth the time you would save by doing this?
I am genuinely curious to see how other contractors manage this.
If the client is coming back with clearly unscoped changes, it's generally out of the question. Be polite at first and let them know that it's "out of scope" and that you could estimate the time required to do it.
When I said "clearly over budget," I meant in terms of your own estimate. Sometimes feature X takes longer to build out, and there's the inclination to cut corners to get things done so you don't drive your effective hourly/day rate down, assuming that the poor estimate was yours and you'll eat the cost.
But expanding on that, do quality work regardless of the scenario, such as:
* The codebase is already a pile of s* left behind by someone else
* They're miserable, complaining, sons a' biches no matter what you do for them
A fix could be sloppy and take 1 line of code, or quality and take 10
What if you estimated all of the features, built them, and then the client comes back with a bunch of new features and changes that would require a new contract. Do you do them for free?
What about ongoing support? My contracts give the client one week to test any features, and once that week has elapsed without any issues, the contract is considered "complete" and they have to pay the other 50%. Would you be for or against that practice?
I guess I am wondering where the balance lies between protecting yourself and protecting your reputation.
Unfortunately, clients (just like all human beings) are squishy and forgetful. Your reputation can get damaged through no fault of your own. When do you decide to let someone go because their expectations don't match the contract they signed? Is the penalty to your reputation so high that it's never worth the time you would save by doing this?
I am genuinely curious to see how other contractors manage this.