Hello all,
I have been working as a contractor for a small company for about 10 years now. I was originally asked to come in and help them with an existing database that was no longer working properly. I was able to fix there issue and over the years have developed the application into a robust database tracking all the companies clients.
The company is a SBA 504 loan company. I have charged them a nominal fee (40/hr), and have not charged them for nearly all the hours I have spent on the database. As a matter of fact I would only submit a bill once a year.
Well, in 2006 I was asked about creating a database that would allow their loan officers to input all the demographic and financial information about a potential client and then print out all the forms/reports necessary to submit for the approval of the loan.
This quickly became a much larger project and I found my skills being challenged, but I was able to learn a lot of what to do and not to do. I decided to create all the reports in Word, something I have not done in the past. I wanted to create them in Word in case they needed to make a change on the fly they would be able to. I have learned that by doing this I need to have the Word Documents link back to a temporary CSV file and not back to a temporary table in the database as then user are not able to run reports for another loan if another user is already running a report.
There have been a lot of other issues, but mostly because someone else in the company, (theirs not mine, it is just me working on this part time as I have a full time job and I can only work on it after hours and on weekends) has had a difference of opinion on how it should work. So now it has been 2 years and I have made great strides in getting the database working with almost 25 tabs of input screens. I have been working with 2 people from their company who have been great. Well all this being said, here is what I am being faced with. I was told tonight that their owner wants they database to be fully running 100% error free by October 1st. This will include an import from the new database to their database I fixed 10 years ago, also they need to have the database export all the data to an XML files and all the documents in a PDF and zip to send to electronically.
Of course I have only submitted a bill for about 90 hours of all this work over the past 2 years, and I know I have well over 300 hours into it. I fell the owner has backed me into a corner telling me that it has to be 100% error free and all the other things still need to be built. They knew that I can only work on this part time. As they have not paid for this, they asked me if they could buy me out. My question is should I do this? Should I sell them a license that gives them rights? I really imagined that one day once I got all the bug worked out converting it from Access to SQL an VB or C#. Should I just let them buy me out?
Thoughts or ideas? What is the going rate for development?
I have been working as a contractor for a small company for about 10 years now. I was originally asked to come in and help them with an existing database that was no longer working properly. I was able to fix there issue and over the years have developed the application into a robust database tracking all the companies clients.
The company is a SBA 504 loan company. I have charged them a nominal fee (40/hr), and have not charged them for nearly all the hours I have spent on the database. As a matter of fact I would only submit a bill once a year.
Well, in 2006 I was asked about creating a database that would allow their loan officers to input all the demographic and financial information about a potential client and then print out all the forms/reports necessary to submit for the approval of the loan.
This quickly became a much larger project and I found my skills being challenged, but I was able to learn a lot of what to do and not to do. I decided to create all the reports in Word, something I have not done in the past. I wanted to create them in Word in case they needed to make a change on the fly they would be able to. I have learned that by doing this I need to have the Word Documents link back to a temporary CSV file and not back to a temporary table in the database as then user are not able to run reports for another loan if another user is already running a report.
There have been a lot of other issues, but mostly because someone else in the company, (theirs not mine, it is just me working on this part time as I have a full time job and I can only work on it after hours and on weekends) has had a difference of opinion on how it should work. So now it has been 2 years and I have made great strides in getting the database working with almost 25 tabs of input screens. I have been working with 2 people from their company who have been great. Well all this being said, here is what I am being faced with. I was told tonight that their owner wants they database to be fully running 100% error free by October 1st. This will include an import from the new database to their database I fixed 10 years ago, also they need to have the database export all the data to an XML files and all the documents in a PDF and zip to send to electronically.
Of course I have only submitted a bill for about 90 hours of all this work over the past 2 years, and I know I have well over 300 hours into it. I fell the owner has backed me into a corner telling me that it has to be 100% error free and all the other things still need to be built. They knew that I can only work on this part time. As they have not paid for this, they asked me if they could buy me out. My question is should I do this? Should I sell them a license that gives them rights? I really imagined that one day once I got all the bug worked out converting it from Access to SQL an VB or C#. Should I just let them buy me out?
Thoughts or ideas? What is the going rate for development?