As I do both town planning work and surveying (where the town planning horizon is about 12 months to get an approval to a minor subdivision, if you're lucky, particularly in small municipalities), I always require 45% on appointment, 45% on submission to the local authority, and the remainder once the local authority approval comes through.
When it's solely survey work, and unless its a really bad client, no deposit/retainer.
When I used to do private work I would ask for 50% on one off clients. Never had a problem collecting the rest. Also did sub work, didn??t like it, took too long to get paid. In 2008 they stopped calling me and I stopped calling them, don??t miss it.
New clients without a previous work history with us are required to provide a retainer equal to:
? the total value of services provided by our geomatics department, if the total value of services provided is less than $2,500; or
? $2,500, if the total value of services provided by the geomatics department is between $2,500 and $5,000; or
? 50% of the total value of services provided by the geomatics department to an upset limit of $5,000 if the total value of services provided exceeds $5,500 prior to commencing any work. If payment made via cheque is returned due to insufficient funds, work will stop immediately until payment is received.
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The client is in a hurry??ÿ Me, too.?ÿ My pace to the site is directly correlated to you paying the deposit.?ÿ Once things are done, they get released when the bill is paid.
We used to when we had new private clients.?ÿ It created quite a headache for our accounting department.?ÿ ?ÿNow, we only do private work for people we know and trust.?ÿ Needless to say we do very little private work.