[consulting] Proper Collections Procedure

[Khalid B]

First collect all the info you have on their requests that caused
the cost overruns, and make sure that it is documented. This will
prove useful for your case with their management and in courts
should that be necessary.

Try contacting others in the hierarchy in the company if your
contact is ignoring you. They may end up just handing it over
to your contact anyway, but at least someone else knows about
it now.

Prepare a complete document recounting the history of the
project, original estimates, their requests causing the overruns,
and your repeated requests for payments. Present it to higher
up management.

Courts are the last resort, and the documents above will help
if you wish to go that route.

On 8/16/06, Michael Haggerty <mhaggerty at trellon.com> wrote:
> I have a question for other members of this list about how they handle
> collections.
>
> I have a complicated matter with a client and their delinquent invoices.
> They are refusing to make payment on fairly large bill after they have
> received a lot of custom code and already launched the site on their own
> servers. The justification they cite is cost overruns in the development
> process, most of which were for features not included in the original spec
> but which they themselves requested. The overruns were within 15% of the
> total project price.
>
> I have tried dealing with them reasonably for several weeks and received
> multiple payment promises that were broken. The bill is now quite a bit
> overdue and it's taking a huge amount of time dealing with all the craziness
> around their tab (they keep requesting further clarification about things
> that were done months ago and it's eating up my team's time). They are
> dealing with other Drupal shops at this point and there is no way for me to
> cut off services. What really burns me is the site was for a third party who
> has already paid them and the cost of development was less than 1/8 of what
> the third party paid.
>
> Anyone have any ideas?
>
> M
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>