A question on freelance contracts

erik!

Hey folks

Any advice on what a good contract for freelancing should contain? What should I make sure is included so that I am protected and don't get stuffed via a contract loop hole etc.

I ask this because I should be discussing contract details soon with a company. If I can I'm hoping to have someone else (lawyer/legal type) to look at the contract for anything that might be undesirable.

I hope this makes sense. This will be my first freelance gig (first gig, in general), so I want to make it count and not screw myself in the end.

Thanks!

Parnell

Invoices are important!
SO make sure you don't send it as an MS Word doc. Make sure you send stuff in PDF format. Encrypt it with a password if you need to. This is important as I ran into problems once with an invoice. Essentially, I sent off the Word Doc with an embedded date (doh!). The invoice said payment needed to be made 30 days from the date on the invoice...however THE DATE KEPT CHANGING TO THE DATE ON THE COMPUTER!!! So as the invoice moved up the chain of payroll the date kept getting delayed. It was completely my fault and although i got paid the date was moved later than intended.

Just something to remember.
B

Ruz

ha ha modelling man, mine did the same thing, so i just put a separate section on the doc for the date which didn't update.

It became a bit of a nightmare when trying to sort my accounts out.

Also if you are working in blocks or mini milestones, make sure they don't try and put the biggest payments on the last block.

If things go wrong( and they sometimes do) you will lose out

Some companies have a policy of not paying a percentage up front, whether you choose to argue the point is up to you,

but some of the bigger players are pretty inflexible.

Ott

I've done invoices before, and one of the ways I have dealt with it is with a .jpg of the invoice, and not a word document.

Another thing to really keep in mind is that you are very specific about your description of tasks you are required to deliver. Don't use ambiguous descriptions about your deliverables, and make sure your estimates are very realistic. Don't plan out your project down to the minute and then realize you are only getting paid $3.45 an hour to do something....which I've seen more than one Freelancer do.

Ruz

generally you will get a lot of work thrown at you in a short space of time, so make sure you

don't sell yourself short.

PeterK

You need to be extremely clear cut about the number and type of revisions you will do without extra payment.

If they change something on their end, you're not responsible for that unless they want to pay you more. If you deliver something broken or incorrect, then you are responsible for that.

consider giving 2 free revisions for things that don't require you to redo the whole model, perhaps like 15% overall change. Anything beyond that, charge them extra; but make sure this is outlined beforehand, and they understand it.