Professional Web Business Tools | About the Forms

The four documents we use for almost every client project:

WEB DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT and SITE SPECIFICATION | PREVIEW

Our Standard Contract for Web Development Work has taken three years and many revisions to reach this level of detail and thoroughness. Many valuable sources were consulted, and real-life mistakes and problems with clients have been turned into contract provisions so that they aren't repeated. It includes a Site Specification is intended to be filled out and made an attachment to the standard contract, so that a detailed description of the planned work is part of the actual contract.

Please note that if you are looking for a lengthy, involved document written in "legalese", the type that might be used for large corporate web site projects, ours is not what you want. The contract is three pages, and is written in plain English. It is intended for small (up to about $10,000) web site projects, and is designed to be simple and to the point, and to be read and understood by both sides.

ESTIMATE REQUEST FORM | PREVIEW

This Estimate Request Form was created specifically to be given to a potential client in order to assist him in collecting and writing out the information you need in order to provide him with an estimate. We use this regularly. Typically, during an initial phone conversation with a potential new client, we politely ask if he would be willing to fill out our questionnaire form, explaining that it's very helpful to us to have all of their basic information in one place so that we can proceed to work up a proposal for him.

ESTIMATE WORKSHEET | PREVIEW

Estimating is one of the very hardest aspects of web design work. On this form, developed over many months, we have broken down the process of planning and producing a web site into detailed parts so that the time required can be estimated accurately. We couldn't live without it! (NOTE: An Excel version of the Estimate Worksheet is now included with the Tools package.)

WEB DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL | PREVIEW

This is an outline for a brief (1-2 page) but thorough proposal for a web site project, including detailed specifications, cost estimate, payment terms, and scheduling. Please note that this is not the type of proposals often used by larger companies, which I feel are simply padded out with graphics and many pages of unnecessary text. Rather, this proposal is designed to communicate honestly and succinctly with the small business client about exactly what you plan to do for them, on what terms. It is intended for projects costing up to about $10,000.

Other documents we use frequently:

RESPONSE TO INITIAL CONTACT SHEET: We use this internally to keep track of new contacts interested in web site work.

We keep a WORK LOG for each client on a clipboard at the desk. Every time we perform work on a client site, we fill in the time and a summary of work done.

Our CHANGE ORDER form is for formalizing the inevitable changes and estimated additional costs.

We developed this WORK FLOW PLAN sheet to pin on the bulletin board over our desks so that we can check off what's done and see what needs to be done next. It is intended for static web site projects.

CONTRACT FOR HOURLY WEB DEVELOPMENT WORK is exactly that.

CONTRACT FOR WEB HOSTING is just that.

CREDIT CARD PAYMENT AUTHORIZATION is the simple form we use for the required authorization to process credit card payments manually in our office.

CLIENT RESPONSIBILITIES HANDOUT: We give this to clients at the start of a project to set some guidelines that we believe will help make things go more smoothly.

FEE INCREASE LETTER: This is the letter we sent out to all current clients recently when we needed to raise our rates.

COMPLETED TEMPLATE SIGN-OFF SHEET: We use this sign-off sheet to get the client's approval of a finished page template in writing.

COMPLETED SITE SIGN-OFF SHEET: We use this sign-off sheet to get a client's written approval for a finished web site.