Electrical design's fee proposal program or spreadsheet

[jaraujo1]

I purchased a small engineering firm 8 months ago. I found that project fee's quote is done using reference of similar previous project done in the past.

The greatest challenge is the unpredictable amount of changes going back and forth among clients, architecture, other branch of engineering and even after the project have started construction. Many times the client refuse to pay for the extra time because it is not in the signed contract or we are afraid to suggest an increase in the quoted fee and we end up losing money. We are afraid the client will not come back particularly if he provides repeat work. I was thinking of having a fudge factor that will compensate for the extra amount of work.

Does anyone have experienced the same issue and have suggestions how to best handle it?

Thanks,

 

[hdpeng]

That's just part of project management. You need a thorough contract that in itself includes all exclusions to the work & limits amount of changes allowed in the original fee. You must either make a stand against excessive changes or suck it up. I have (& many other engineers I know) several times in the past had to tell clients that I would withold work once it was evident they were out of control on constant re-design & didn't want to pay for it. What most of us do is have the client sign off on the architectural plans before we put a lot of effort into the engineering, so we can validate our previous efforts once changes come down. You can still get paid for the work performed, but you'll most likely have to take them to court. As far as repeat business, ask yourself if you want repeat business from a client that's going to try to bleed you dry. That's the best advice I can give you.

 

[Lxnxjxhx]

Business law for Maryland says that for grey areas the contract is interpreted against the person who wrote it. Hope this helps.