Re: FWD: Purchasing software as an independent contractor

[Chris Kowalchuk <chris -at- bdk -dot- net>]

As always, it depends.

If the client has something strange that I'll never use again, then I
either use it at the client's site, or in some cases they purchase it
for me (depends how big the project is, or whether ongoing, and how the
client feels about that sort of thing.) I charged a client for a
full-blown version of Visual Basic because we were developing some code
(I sub-contracted that) as well as providing documentation. That was an
odd case. The client had no reasonable expectation that I should have
VB, but since I was overseeing that side of the project as well, it was
reasonable that they should provide it for me. (How do you like that,
kids, a tech writer in charge of the developers! Don't see that often,
hey?)

However, as for maintaining the latest copies of MS Everything, WP,
PageMaker, whatever my regular clients need, I usually eat that expense
myself (but of course rates must reflect it somehow--overhead,
basically). Your rate has to cover overhead, not as some kind of
surcharge, but simply as a factor in your prices. If you need 40K a year
personally, and your business consumes 20K, you need to bill 60 K. It's
that simple. Extraordinary expenses might be billed extra, but you have
to negotiate that out on a case-by-case basis. That's what I do, anyway.

Chris Kowalchuk