How do you keep track of what a client actually asked for vs. what you quoted vs. what you delivered?

[aaron_pta13]

I'm curious how other people handle this. Client sends a request, sometimes a proper brief, sometimes a voice note, sometimes just a line in WhatsApp and somewhere between that, the quote, and the actual delivered work, things drift. A "quick change" turns into scope creep, or a client swears they asked for something different from what they paid for.

Do you have an actual system for tracking this (spreadsheet, notes app, something else), or does it live mostly in your head / old chat threads? What's the point where it usually falls apart for you?

 

[AntennaMan]

Statement of work to be signed by all parties. Any addition only in writing and again signed by all parties before starting work. Can be added as an addendum.
Very formal but if it is a common occurrence, it should work to protect everyone.

 

[swakop_toe]

Whether you sucked, swallowed or gargled before you swallowed.

 

[aaron_pta13]

Statement of work to be signed by all parties. Any addition only in writing and again signed by all parties before starting work. Can be added as an addendum.
Very formal but if it is a common occurrence, it should work to protect everyone.

Thanks for the insights. Has the informal request thing burned you before? I'm curious whether this is a lesson learned the hard way.

 

[Tomtomtom]

For starters avoid working again for clients who put you in a position where you are nit-picking line items or contractual terms. There are other fish in the sea.

Ideally you should be billing for your time. Scope creep is not really the problem, time creep is. If you have to itemise features, they should still be subordinate to a schedule, e.g. give each milestones a timeframe on the quote. And it's less about precision in spec than in defensibility/provability. "Publish to app store" leaves less room for interpretation than "refactor authentication module".

The quote must have a disclaimer that out of scope work is billed separately or hourly. When a "can we just also..." comes in, be consistent, and polite but firm. Don't say no, just say you can put that down for the next phase, to be costed separately. Or they can invoke your hourly rate. It's amazing how fast features turn out to be not so high priority when the client understands those are the only options.

 

[Alexander the Straight]

How do I cover my ass in the event that the client discovers that I did what earned me the most commission/fees loosely based around what I understood the client could have meant .

 

[aaron_pta13]

What do you use to keep track of out-of-scope work you need to bill separately?

 

[Nerfherder]

What do you use to keep track of out-of-scope work you need to bill separately?

You log a change request for each item. Then the customer signs off on that CR.
Each CR is a contract on its own. Just a one page. Exactly what is going to change and the cost.

Sometimes anticipate that there will be changes as we go and build that into the quote.
We call it out so they know they can dip into that if needed.

 

[aaron_pta13]

You log a change request for each item. Then the customer signs off on that CR.
Each CR is a contract on its own. Just a one page. Exactly what is going to change and the cost.

Sometimes anticipate that there will be changes as we go and build that into the quote.
We call it out so they know they can dip into that if needed.

What do you use to actually put those CRs together and get them signed? Is it a template you fill in each time, a document/e-signature tool or do you use something else? Then once you've got a handful of them per client, how do you keep track of which ones are still open vs. paid?

 

[warrenpridgeon]

I work for a number of clients... I tend to use google sheets to track actual client requests (who, what, when and how long). It has become laborious so I'm doing what developers do. Build a tool to track the time, it then correlates everything per client, has context switching etc in it. Sits in the task tray, click it and it allows you to quickly change between tasks, pause the current one etc.

Some clients work on a "if we ask for something basically just do it and we will pay" others want an estimate of time/cost before the time.

I try work on a "we quoted for the project and new stuff goes to phase 2 unless we increase the scope" when it's anything outside of "change the colour of this button" or "put it on the other side of the screen". Sometimes I am able to negotiate Rx.xx for the project and when completed we go into a UAT phase where we charge hourly for changes/addons.

@aaron_pta13 maybe I should get the thing in pre-launch and get you as a founder user (basically your testing it means it's free). lol

 

[Nerfherder]

What do you use to actually put those CRs together and get them signed? Is it a template you fill in each time, a document/e-signature tool or do you use something else? Then once you've got a handful of them per client, how do you keep track of which ones are still open vs. paid?

yes, use a template.

I don't actually know how these are tracked for billing (as I do the work not the billing) .
The CR is sent via mail and we accept email response as acceptance. Customer can sign as the want.

Each CR has a quote associated with it - so someone has done an estimate (even if its 1 days work).
You should have an invoice number for each quote, then you also have an acceptance criteria and that is the trigger for payment.

I'm not 100% on how the billing run works but we all log time, when you log work you log against a billable item.
So a project will have a billing code for each piece of work, the main project and each CR.
At the end of each month the timesheets basically generate the billing run.

Its a ballache but everyone has a little bit of work to make the money come in.

 

[BrotherTheresa]

Idk. How do you keep track of what your wife asked, vs what you heard, vs what you ended up doing? Impossible!