Hey bit-tech, its been a while and I have a question for you.... Our IT services business has just finished a job for a new restaurant opening in London. The people opening the new venture are old friends of ours & asked us to come in & install their tech for them. Inevitably this snowballed & we ended up doing alot of work outside of our usual realm to help them save on costs (all within our capability but not something we do for other customers). Now the awkward bit - charging them! We agreed pricing on the original project but as the others progressed we never really sat down to talk costs . 2 of our team have been on & off site for the last 4 weeks and completed - - Install of ePos system (5 tills, printers, software install, testing etc) - Laid 400m of Cat5 throughout the building for various things - Installed CCTV system (18 cameras + DVR) - Installed Wifi throughout the site So, in terms of labour - what is a fair price do you think?
Charge the going rate. That is all. I've done business with friends before and it has ruined the friendship in a couple of cases, and my rule of thumb is simple: everybody pays the same rate, friends or not. The worst thing you can possibly do (in my experience at least) is to have any ambiguity about pricing; it should be crystal clear from the outset. IMO you should simply itemise the jobs, tote up the hours and write up the invoice. Addendum: if your "friends" mess you about and try to haggle you for a better price, they ain't no friends. True friends will pay you your dues. Back when I was winding down my photography business I did a mate's wedding photography for him, along with another photographer. The work turned into a full day of shooting plus processing images and he wanted to pay me £150 for it (compared to around £1k for pretty good value wedding day shoot), and then proceeded to ask me for freebies on top of the paltry wage. Never again.
You say the original project was agreed re. price. Presumably the price you agreed was based on something, either the going rate or some discount was applied because friends. Apply that same basis to the rest of the work. Either that, or you sit down with them and thrash it out, but you'll be lucky if that goes smoothly. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you it's not good practice to carry out work without agreeing at least the basis for which subsequent charges will be calculated on.
Bill as normal, but you can always apply a % discount on the hourly rate. That way you can bill to reflect the work done, but also give a better deal.
