How to proceed with billing a customer...

[XZeroII]

The Situation: I wrote software for a company. There were originally 2 separate versions of this program, one that was for the US, and one for Canada with minor changes between them. Basically, I just make a copy of the US source code once it was finished and modified it slightly to create the Canadian one. In version 2 of this software that I wrote, I combined the source code of the US and Canadian into one application (along with other changes). For any changes I make to the US program, I need to bill the US offices. If I make changes to the Canadian program, I need to bill the Canadian offices.

The Question: Now that I have combined both into one, I need to bill both the US and Canadian offices for this work. Lets say I charged $10 (not real number) to make these changes. Should I charge the US office $10 and the Canadian office $10 (charge each one full price), or should I bill the US office $5 and the Canadian office $5 (split the cost). Or some compromise like $7 each. I am really stumped on this. Any help?

 

[Savarak]

both full price

 

[Kyteland]

My guess is that if you were billing them separately before, then you should continue to do so. Really, how much difference was there in the first versions yet you billed them separately.

 

[GermyBoy]

Charge both full price, unless you standardize it and make a pulldown menu: American product or Canadian product.

Secondly, never charge American $10 and Canada $10. Charge Canada $20. Their dollar is worth nothing, and they're used to being gouged for prices.

Do what you've been doing the entire time. Don't cheat on yourself and get less money than you deserve.


Business Creed #1: Don't charge $1 for something you can charge $2 for, and gives half the performance.

 

[blakeatwork]

Ask them if they want you to bill head office, or each branch... generally they would just send the bill to head office anyways, so save yourself the paper and postage..

 

[StageLeft]

Secondly, never charge American $10 and Canada $10. Charge Canada $20. Their dollar is worth nothing, and they're used to being gouged for prices.

Got crack?

 

[ElFenix]

keep raising prices until they say "uncle"

 

[GermyBoy]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Secondly, never charge American $10 and Canada $10. Charge Canada $20. Their dollar is worth nothing, and they're used to being gouged for prices.

Got crack?

Nope. What is the problem with this?





A $50 video game in America costs $90 there, plus 15% tax in many places, so you're paying over $100 Canadian for a videogame. I'd say that's being gouged for money.

 

[rh71]

It doesn't matter how easy it was for you to do this. The full software was still required in both instances so you would charge as if you created both from scratch into a full program. But do adjust for exchange rate.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: GermyBoy

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Secondly, never charge American $10 and Canada $10. Charge Canada $20. Their dollar is worth nothing, and they're used to being gouged for prices.

Got crack?

Nope. What is the problem with this?





A $50 video game in America costs $90 there, plus 15% tax in many places, so you're paying over $100 Canadian for a videogame. I'd say that's being gouged for money.

a $50 videogame costs $80 - it's not being gouged but rather the exchange rate. He should charge them $10 US and it's up to them to come up with the $10 after converting from Canadian, so it would cost them about $15 CAN

 

[cmv]

There aren't nearly enough details to make a judgement on this one.

Do you work for a company with branches in the US and Cananda and this is internal billing? Or are you an outside person selling the software/services to both branches of the same client company? I'm assuming the later and in that case I would not bill both divisions 100% for the product as it would look bad if they found out what was going on. I would bill something like 70-85% each but if most of the work was for one divisions requirements, then I would bill that division more and the other division less (same total, just more to one, less to the other).

Even with that assumption there are still a lot of unknowns that make it hard to give any sort of decision that would make sense...