Belated Followup and Thanks to Billing Problems

Subject: Belated Followup and Thanks to Billing Problems
From: "Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:46:24 -0700

Belatedly ...
Thanks for all of you who responded, off and on list,
about the billing problems we were having. Things
are looking up here. Here's the scenario and
outcome.

(Reminder: We hadn't been paid for two months by a
large corporate client, were being shanghaied into a
contract agency, and hit with ridiculous demands for
insurance and reporting. What we neglected to mention
last time was that we've been doing dozens of small
projects for this client, so had nothing to hold back
delivery on until we got paid.)

* We got the $4 million liability insurance requirement
reduced to $1 million, and found that prices for $1
million of liability insurance range from $200 to $1400
annually, depending on a number of factors. If you're
looking for liability insurance, keep shopping with independent
agents until you find someone who says "no problem, it's
XXX much." The ones who will "look into it" don't seem
to get anywhere and often expect wierd stuff from you before
they'll give you a quote.

* We finally got paid.

* We kept our contact informed on the run-around and
increased our billing rate to cover our added insurance
and reporting costs.

* We picked up a couple of new contracts that we'll be
wrapping up in the next month or two.

* We'd already stopped all work before the last posting
on this topic, and didn't even act like we'd work without
payment.

* We should be starting a couple of new projects for
the corporate client soon.

* We did the damn paperwork for the outsource firm.

* Got our contact/Project Manager involved in getting
us paid--made it partially her problem.

We learned:
* Never, ever, ever have only a single contract, no
matter how golden it looks. (This project was to
have had us busy full time until April.)
* A good insurance agent is almost as good as a
good accountant.
* Good contacts in the tech writing community
are invaluable.

That's what happened--thanks again.
Eric and Deborah
(and yes, we're still looking for new contracts
'cause we didn't like this experience at all.
We'll busy ourselves with other clients and
the monolith can have as much of us as
is left over. If you've got something, yell.)



*********************************************************
* Eric J. Ray, ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com, http://www.raycomm.com/
* TECHWR-L Listowner, co-author _Mastering HTML 4.0_
* _HTML 4 for Dummies Quick Reference_, and others.
* RayComm, Inc., currently accepting contract inquiries.





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