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Re: Independent programming advice
¿ªÔÆÌåÓý1-????? You definitely need and want insurance. Talk to a good broker but generally general liability, commercial auto, and errors & omissions (E&O) are expected/required contracting work in addition to workers comp which you may or may not be required to carry as a sole proprietor (and even if you aren¡¯t required by law, some companies you contract with may still require it). Virtually any company is going to want a COI with them as a named insured before they¡¯ll subcontract and that¡¯s where a broker that¡¯s easy to deal with is very important. 2-????? That¡¯s where a detailed scope of work and conversations with the client are important. Yes the consultant put it in the spec and it may technically be required but if you can have a conversation with your client (e.g. the one hiring you) depending on their level of risk tolerance and situational awareness it may be something they formally take up the chain (e.g. through the RFI process) or they may take the risk on (yeah, ignore that)¡that¡¯s not really your concern as long as your scope of work is clear as to what you will be providing and what you aren¡¯t providing. 3-????? That¡¯s something you¡¯ll have to develop a feel for. Even when you have a feel for it there will be times when your hair is on fire and times when you¡¯re slow. Use the slow times to do what you can so when your hair is on fire you don¡¯t suffer burns. Managing resources is critical and over promising and under delivering is a great way to alienate clients. ? 4-????? Again totally philosophically driven. 95% of what I oversee is a fixed rate contract where as long as the scope of work doesn¡¯t change the total cost doesn¡¯t change and is inclusive of our onsite commissioning services. Some do 100% on the clock (time and materials) billing. 5-????? Still philosophically driven. Anything big you should catch and flag while you¡¯re developing the scope and address it there (exclude functionality, state an assumed correction that you can do whatever). Generally if it¡¯s obvious and we didn¡¯t raise it that¡¯s on us. For true changes to the scope after the fact if it¡¯s small (e.g. it would take longer to write up a change order, invoice, etc. than to just do) it¡¯s not worth a CO. If it¡¯s debatable and everything else is going well, it¡¯s not worth it for the relationship to CO everything that moves. But there¡¯s give and take. If someone¡¯s making a project unnecessarily difficult they¡¯re more likely to get a CO than someone who¡¯s making a project easy. Big things (like adding an entire room) virtually always get a CO. There¡¯s a lot of give and take and reading the situation to walk the line between a profitable and unprofitable project and also nurturing or killing a relationship. There are a lot of independent programmers out there. 6-????? 100% absolutely. In painful detail. State the obvious. Spell out what you will do, and if it¡¯s ambiguous what you won¡¯t do. Liability. Payment terms. A lawyer up front to draft a template/boilerplate can save tens or hundreds of thousands down the road and may be a requirement of your GL or E&O carrier. ? Make sure you understand the costs of doing business ¨C the annual CSP fees, insurance, taxes, continuing training, bad debt, etc. Make sure you understand the business processes and accounting (or have someone who¡¯s good at it so you can focus) ¨C how ?PO gets ingested, how and when invoices get generated, payments reconciled, etc. ? I believe Crestron now requires an approved business plan for new CSPs so you may want/need to find a mentor who can help put that together. ? There¡¯s a lot more to independent programming than just programming. ? -- Lincoln King-Cliby, CTS, DMC-E-4K/T/D ? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of AVProgrammer
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2019 9:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [crestron] Independent programming advice ? Hello, |