Terms and conditions
Please read the following pages carefully. It is important that you fully appreciate my stance on billing and payment in order to avoid possible misunderstandings. You will find that whilst my terms are of course designed to protect my own interests they remain fair, and are simultaneously oriented towards enabling mutually fulfilling business relationships to prosper.
Timesheet vs Fixed Price
I am equally comfortable either working to a fixed-price quotation, or using a "billable hours" timesheet-based approach. I'm happy to adopt whichever you feel most comfortable with.
Some customers definitely prefer progressive billing, based on timesheets and regular invoicing, according to an ever-evolving and ever-more refined set of requirements. This approach allows a project to kick off very rapidly, and yields tangible results & benefits early on. However it has the "how long is a piece of string" disadvantage, that nobody knows how much the total expenditure will end up being.
Other customers are seeking a fixed price quotation for their proposed work. This of course entails you providing me with as full and complete a picture of your requirements as possible, so I can judge how much work might be involved. There will inevitably be a lot of questions on my part, and I may need to draft several proposals as to how best to meet all of your requirements.
If this requirements analysis and specification drafting process takes a significant amount of time, before any commitment on your part has been made and before any development work has even started, then I reserve the right to invoice for it or include it as an overhead in the quotation.
Trading status: Sole Trader
I operate my business and conduct my affairs with the Inland Revenue on a purely self-employed 'sole trader' basis, rather than as a Limited Company or in partnership with anybody else. This means that I do not work for an employer or agency.
I am not registered for VAT, so no Value Added Tax will be added to any invoice that I may issue.
Any payment you make to me should not include any type of deduction for Income Tax or National insurance. All cheques for such payments should be made payable to me personally.
If you are a VAT registered company and issue an invoice to me as my supplier, VAT should be added as normal.