I've been consulting for the past 12 years myself, and I usually just go to the company being sure they have a clear picture of my hourly rate. I do the job, leave, and send them a bill. I've found companies very willing to pay because they know that the IT community is a "small world," and if they want service again, they don't mess with the consultants. The only times I've found contracts necessary were when a) you draw up retainers (agreements to provide some amount of service over a certain period of time or to be "on call" with them), or b) when you do work for the government, but the government's easy since they usually present you with a contract that you read and sign (or read and walk away). Have fun with it! Garrett Erik Anderson wrote: > So I have just gotten asked to do my first freelance consulting gig. > I'll be setting up an Apache/Tomcat environment for a company, but > that's beside the point. > > I figure that there are at least a few people on the list that have > done private consulting before, and I'd like to ask for advice, as I'm > pretty ignorant to the whole process. > > I know that they'll just cut me a check, and I'll have to declare that > income on next year's tax return. > > Do I need to write up a contract beforehand? > Is there any legalities that I need to be careful of? > Should I get a partial payment before starting? > etc., etc., etc. > > There's a thousand more questions I could ask, but I guess I'll start > with these. > > Thanks in advance! > -Erik Anderson > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list