Time Billing

Billing and Time Booking

Overview

The flexibility OrderFlow provides requires careful configuration that has to be set up, tested and maintained. The service that we provide in meeting both the customer's strategic and day to day needs does have to be paid for and cannot be embedded in a fixed licence fee without being prohibitively expensive. For this reason support work is chargeable - above and beyond the hosting and licencing charges that cover access to the OrderFlow software and services.

Our policy for billing for work is governed by two principles: that it must be fair, and that it must be transparent.

In this chapter we describe the conditions under which work will be chargeable, and when charges will not apply. We also cover the mechanisms we have in place for obtaining approval for chargeable work. Finally, we describe how we record and invoice the time spent to ensure that our billing is transparent.

Our approach to charging for work aims to reflect the degree to which our services add business value beyond that covered through the hosting and/or software licensing arrangements alone. We recognise the importance of ensuring that these services can be provided in a commercially fair way, with customers appreciating the value provided for the fees charged.

When is Work Chargeable?

Support

Support requests can be raised to cover all sorts of situations.

Most ticket interations with OrderFlow will start as support requests. Once received, tickets will be classified as one of the following.

• problems, where part of the application is not functioning correctly or delivering the expected outcome, unless the work was initially done on a fixed-cost basis
• change requests, where the desire is expressed to change the way a part of the application is working, or to add a new feature or capability
• general information requests, which involve general questions about how the core OrderFlow platform works or can be used
• tasks, where we are asked to carry out actions for the customer

Work done by the OrderFlow support team is ordinarily chargeable. It is important to note that even if OrderFlow is not working as expected there are many situations in which the work required to address this will chargeable, these scenarios are outlined below:

Examples of support work that would be chargeable include:

• addressing issues arising from previously delivered customisations, including custom scripts, reports and workflow configurations
• specific information requests about how a feature should be implemented in your environment
• support tasks arising from API interactions with third party systems
• fixes and corrective actions required as a result of for system errors introduced by the customer or third parties
• issues relating to bespoke features and enhancements developed specifically for the customer concerned (and not generally used by other customers) unless the work was initially done on a fixed-cost basis.

There are some notable situations in which support work would not be chargeable.

Core Software Bugs

If a problem is reported and this turns out to be due to a defect in the core software, then the support work undertaken to investigate and resolve the bug will not be billable.

As mentioned, the exception to this is when the bug occurs in a part of the system developed as a bespoke feature for the customer concerned, and when the development of this feature was charged to the customer on a time spent rather than fixed price basis.

General Enquiries

We normally do not charge for general questions about how parts of the system work and can be used. However, questions that relate to the specifics of how features have been applied or could be applied for a particular customer's business requirements will typically be chargeable.

Initial Response to Change Requests

The OrderFlow team will provide an initial response to change requests on a non-billable basis.

This initial response will not include any detailed requirements gathering or any of the design work required for a firm quote for the change request.

The purpose of this is to give the customer an order of magnitude indication of the scale of the work involved, allowing the customer to decide whether to proceed with the chargeable design work required to scope the change.

OrderFlow Mistakes

OrderFlow will not bill for errors that one would reasonably expect to have been avoided. Examples include failure to apply process correctly, or incorrectly applying implementation steps when delivering changes. They would not include omissions or oversights in identifying requirements or edge cases in the customer's use of the system.

Of course, a judgement may need to be made where it not obvious where the 'fault' lies for a particular situation, and in some circumstances, it may be appropriate to book as billable only a portion of our time taken to address an issue.

Hosting-related Tasks

OrderFlow will not charge for tasks directly relating to the provision of the OrderFlow hosting environment.

Project Management

For some projects OrderFlow will charge for project management services.

Two scenarios where this is likely to occur are if OrderFlow is undertaking work to:

• coordinate or manage the activities of third parties.
• manage internally the delivery of a potentially complex program of work for a specific customer over a period.

Solution Requests

This type of work involves the request for configuration changes or new features to address specific problems.

We encourage our customers to be creative and proactive in exploring ways to use the software more effectively. Accordingly, we usually don't charge for answering general questions about how features could be applied.

We also welcome feedback and feature suggestions that could be beneficial for the product and its users, so we won't charge for these kinds of interactions.

However, we do typically charge for detailed or specific responses to individual customer requirements, or for work undertaken to obtain a better understanding of these requirements. The design work that precedes the provision of a solution or development feature will typically be chargeable.

Bug Fixes

As with support, OrderFlow does not charge customers for fixes to defects in the core software product.

When the fix needs to be applied to a bespoke feature developed for that customer, for which the development was not charged on a fixed price basis, the bug fix may be chargeable.

Feature Development

Feature requests that we receive from customers normally fall into two categories:

• customer-specific bespoke developments
• roadmap features (that would reasonably be expected to be useful for multiple customers)

Customer-specific bespoke developments will typically be chargeable.

For roadmap feature requests, the situation is a little more complicated. If the customer wishes to expedite the feature, then some charges will be applied for a commitment to deliver that feature by a specified date. The customer will not be charged the development cost for features that are developed simply as part of the OrderFlow Roadmap, where no commitment is provided for the timing of the delivery of these features.

Capped Time vs Fixed Price vs Time Spent Development

When quoting for chargeable development work, we usually give customers an estimate of the work on a capped time basis. Other options, used much less often for development tasks, are to book time on a time spent basis, or on a fixed cost basis.

In all cases, OrderFlow will typically do chargeable design work to identify the development tasks and costs involved.

OrderFlow typically does not carry out implementation work on a fixed price basis as the scope of the work often varies in ways that are outside of our control.

Project management and reactive support work is always charged on a time spent basis.

Capped Time Development

A capped quote involves a commitment to providing a deliverable within a specified number of hours. If less time is taken, the customer benefits with lower charges, but is not penalised for an overrun.

OrderFlow typically provides capped estimates for development and solution preparation work, but not for work where the time spent may be affected by factors outside of OrderFlow's control.

For this reason, we don't provide capped estimates for any of the following:

• design work
• implementation work involved in delivering the changes into the customer environment
• support work that follows the implementation

In preparing a capped estimate, we typically go through a detailed design process to ensure that the precise scope of the work is fully understood and agreed, along with any limitations or caveats.

The solution prep will include:

• development work, with associated unit testing and reviews
• local verification of the behaviour in full in the OrderFlow development environment
• identification of 'implementation steps' required to apply the changes to the customer environments, as well as any other handover documentation

It is important to note for the customer using this model, we can never provide a capped quote for all the work involved in scoping, preparing and delivering an end to end solution. The cap only applies for the scope of work stated in the request for approval.

We do however, wherever possible, structure our solutions so that as much as possible of the overall effort is covered within the capped portion of the quote. This does involve more up front effort and some more process overhead. However, due to the effort taken to 'pre-verify' the solution and identify the steps to be taken prior to delivery, it greatly reduces the risk of a change not working.

Time Spent Development

If development is done on a time spent basis, the costs applied may vary from the original estimate. If the work is done more quickly than expected, the benefit is passed on to the customer. However, the customer also takes on the risk of receiving additional charges in the event of unexpected overruns.

As described below, OrderFlow will inform the customer if it becomes clear that a significant overrun is likely, and seek approval for additional work if necessary.

In general, we try to avoid carrying out work on a purely time spent basis, as it is much more difficult to provide customers with confidence that costs will be kept in check.

Fixed Cost Development

For fixed price development, OrderFlow takes on the risk of a cost overrun by ensuring that work is delivered within an agreed budget.

Fixed cost development is normally charged on the basis of the estimated work involved, but with an substantial additional contingency to cover the risk of a cost overrun.

If bugs are identified in work done on a fixed cost basis, work done to resolve the bug will not be chargeable.

In practice we don't often provide fixed costs quotes as it can lead to commercially unfair outcomes based on the extent to which the time taken to deliver a solution deviates from the estimate.

Obtaining Approval

Part of our commitment to transparency involves ensuring that we have approval from the customer for any chargeable work that is undertaken, so that the customer does not get any unpleasant surprises when receiving invoices.

For this we make sure to establish who has authority to approve chargeable work, and to ensure that approval for chargeable work is obtained at the appropriate points.

Customer 'Approver' Role

At a very early stage in our interaction with a customer we will determine which users within the customer's organisation are entitled to provided approval for chargeable work.

The Two Hour Rule

Any request to the customer for approval for chargeable work will involve some project management overhead, and delay. For this reason, within the early stages of the implementation we normally suggest that we apply a two hour rule to new support requests

If chargeable work is expected to take two hours or less, it will be undertaken without specific approval being requested for the work involved.

The two hour figure may seem arbitrary - it can be changed on request - but in our view this time threshold does allow OrderFlow to be responsive while still giving the customer the control over approval of larger pieces of work.

For support requests, design and development work that is expected to exceed two hours, an estimate will be provided, and specific approval will be requested before the work is undertaken.

Ticket Management

When using the ticketing system, OrderFlow will use ticketing states to indicate that approval is being requested for work.

• Design Approval Requested: if significant design work is required to arrive at an estimate for quoted work, OrderFlow will assign the ticket to the customer Approver with an appropriate comment, and move the ticket to the 'Design Approval Requested' state. The design work will only begin once the customer has given approval for this work, normally via a comment on the ticket.
• Awaiting Approval: this state is used to indicate that approval is requested for development or implementation work. Once again, no work will start until the customer has given approval, at which time the state of the ticket is changed to 'Approved'.

Approval for Additional Work

When work is done on a time spent basis, and the amount of time taken is likely to exceed the original estimate provided, OrderFlow will notify the customer of this development. We'll also provide an estimate and request approval for the additional work involved.

Typically, this will only apply for design work, where we have previously given an initial expectation on the effort required to scope a solution, but require additional time to complete the design effort.

Time Booking

OrderFlow's system for time booking helps to ensure that charges to customers are applied in a transparent way.

All chargeable work is backed by individual time booking entries that are provided to the customer as part of the monthly invoice.

Each time entry has the following information:

• the ticket against which the time is being booked
• the type of activity (e.g. support, development, implementation, project management)
• a comment describing the activity covered by the time booking

All non-billable time spent on customer tickets is also recorded, and provided with the invoice, although in this case for information purposes only. We will also state the reason for the time not being billable when time is booked as such.

Detailed reports of time booking for the current month are available with the support portal.