#because every single one of those invoices you’re asking about are listed right there very clearly on the online billing sheet

[ednacrabapple]

Payroll Monday is my least favorite day of the week because this one bitch from accounting sends me a million emails demanding to know why certain matters don’t have invoices but if she paid attention to literally a single email she gets each week she would know exactly why certain matters are missing invoices

[whispersafterdusk]

Lost in Time - ch 13

With the amount of blueprints, lists, material invoices, books, and samples sitting on his desk Xu felt just a bit buried and overwhelmed, but in a good way -- not only had Portia and Atara agreed to pledge funds for an expansion of the clinic but Walnut Groove, Tallsky, Lucien, Meidi, and Ethea had also decided to assist.  What was going to be a single additional room had turned into two new floors with six rooms apiece to be added on to the side of the building along with a basement for Stewart's needed power and server storage.  It was going to be an ambitious project and take a bit of time but inwardly he almost felt like he was vibrating with excitement.

And what timing too; his old master in Seesai had sent HIM a student.  He hadn't seen his master in almost six years now but he could almost picture the old man jumping in excitement over the news of the facility and Stewart (his handwriting definitely portrayed his excitement well - Xu had only ever seen it this messy when he'd written about his granddaughter's wedding) and Xu himself was feeling quite flattered that his teacher had trusted him with the task of teaching. ((Continued below cut))

Of course, Xu would be learning right alongside his student but that didn't matter too much; there was still a lot Xu could teach even if Stewart and the facility hadn't been found.

He was trying to clear off his desk when the clinic door opened and in walked Eli; he caught a glimpse of darkness behind her - it seemed their appointment time was here...he'd lost all track of time and now he was unprepared.  Drat.

"Good evening, Eli.  I'll just need a moment to clear off a corner."

Eli skimmed his desk and gave him a small smile.  "Don't tell me you're changing careers to architect?"

Xu chuckled as he stacked some of the books up on the floor near his feet.  "Not at all - I have some exciting news to share, actually." With the books mostly out of the way it was easy to stack up the rest and he managed to get half the desk cleared as she came over and settled on her usual stool; there was a small notebook with a blue cover in her hand - it was good to see she'd brought it today.  "Would you like something to drink?"

"No thank you.  So what's all the clutter for?"

"Well!" he said as he dropped onto his own seat.  "What I had intended to be just one additional room for the clinic has turned into a much bigger project -- Portia, Atara, Lucien, Walnut Groove, Tallsky, Meidi, AND Ethea have all pledged to send funds to turn it into a basement as well as two additional floors - to match the height of what's already here, of course.  It seems Portia may become a center for medical knowledge here in the upcoming years!"

Eli's expression changed to one of surprise before shifting into a grin.  "That's good news, doc.  Didn't think you'd all move so quickly on those measurements I got you."

"I didn't either but once Gale had them in hand he immediately got on the telegraph to send out word.  I imagine next we'll be figuring out arrangements for other doctors to come and study under Stewart -- and, speaking of that, my master in Seesai actually has already sent a student to me.  He's at the Round Table getting dinner but I can't wait to introduce you two."

"Wow, lucky timing for this student."

"Isn't it?" Xu laughed.  "I thought that myself.  Oh, and uh - when you meet him, know that he and I already have laughed over -- well, you'll see. I don't want to spoil it."

She gave him a questioning look but he just smiled - it was such a funny happenstance, really.

"How long will it take to complete?" she asked instead.

"I'm not sure - that part is still being figured out, as well as which contracts are going to which builders."

Eli nodded, shifting so she could rest an ankle over her opposite knee; the notebook shifted along with the movement and was now balanced across her thigh.  "Well, no rush.  Stewart's server banks are UNDER his docking station, and that access door is sealed up tight.  No clue how or when we're getting in there..."

"Can he not open the door?"

Eli huffed out a sigh.  "Yes, and no.  TECHNICALLY yes, he could.  But apparently not only is that the floor where his server banks are but that area down there was connected to the secret project his programming is preventing him from telling us about. Because we aren't authorized to know about it he can't open the door for us, BUT, he did say he could turn a blind eye to any attempts to get inside due to enacting his Emergency Protocol programming.  His logic, which is apparently good enough for his code, is if I survived all this time there might be more survivors down below, and he's not allowed to willfully allow someone to come to harm inside his facility.  I'm...rather uncomfortable with even the remote chance that we'd find someone else down there but since Stewart isn't in any rush I think that's a good indicator that the chance, while not zero, is so small that we're not likely to find anything surprising lurking below."

Xu frowned as he searched across his desk for his clipboard and pen.  "That sounds like a lot of needless extra effort and stress.  I thought All Source AIs and living AIs were allowed some free will?"

"A human has free will but we all still tend to obey laws."

"Ah."  That was a good point.  He finally found his clipboard and pen, and then retrieved Eli's file from a desk drawer.  "So...how have you been feeling lately?"

She leaned forward to hold out the notebook.   "Mostly ok.  It's still hard to see the buildings around here.  I tried journaling like you suggested but I mostly ended up scribbling things.   It's not as easy as it sounds to put thought to paper when you'd rather not be thinking at all."

Xu took the journal from her and thumbed through the first couple of pages - there were a couple of dated entries but as she'd said there were a lot of sketches in here; there were skyscrapers, some boats, something that was a cross between a plane and a truck, squat buildings, some mountainous areas...  "These are nice. Were you an artist in school?"

"Not really.  I can do buildings and landscapes but don't ask me to try drawing a person or animal.  I struggle with plants a lot too."

Xu smiled and kept looking through.  "I see a lot of precise things where scale matters, and not as many things where it doesn't. Would you say you enjoy neat and orderly aspects of life?"

"That's one way to put it, I guess."

Xu opened his mouth to continue but the clinic's door opened and in came Phyllis in a rush.  She had a paper in her hand and she waved it at him as she hurried across the floor.

"It's done!  I did it!"

"That's fantastic!" he replied, standing and almost being bowled over as Phyllis collided with him in a hug.  "When will it be available for you to move in?"

"Two months from now," Phyllis answered.  She pulled away and was grinning ear to ear.

"...congratulations?" came Eli's somewhat confused response.  

Laughing, Xu turned toward her.  "Phyllis has been trying to get the owner of a building in South Block to sell for months now.  It seems they finally accepted her recent offer so now she'll have a clinic of her own to run here soon."

"Oh - definitely congratulations then," Eli said, nodding to her.  "You can never have too many doctors."

"I can't wait," Phyllis laughed - a sound somewhere between elated and relieved.  

Xu hadn't seen her so excited or happy in quite a while and it was infectious; he too was grinning as he sat back down.  "After such exciting news in such a short period of time I hope we can focus properly."

"No worries, doctor," Eli chuckled.  "Some days even just talking about the weather is a welcome interaction."

"Has there been any new troubles for you?  You're still settling in well?"

"As well as I can be."

Phyllis folded up the paper and slid it into the pocket of her skirt and then, as she tended to do when she sat in on therapy sessions, quietly took a seat on a stool that was off to the side near one of the cabinets; the movement drew Xu's attention so when the clinic door opened yet again he didn't notice it until he saw Phyllis's head turn slightly to face that way.

Framed in the doorway, looking uncertain as to whether he should venture further inside, was his new student; the young man was named Harrison.  His hair was a muddy brown that he kept clipped close to the skin and his eyes were a very dark shade of brown - they almost looked black.  He stood at the same height as Xu but was just a tad bit thicker in the stomach area, and was wearing a short sleeved button up white shirt under an open black vest, black pants, and somewhat threadbare canvas shoes.

Xu gestured for him to come in.  "Ah, there you are - Eli, I'd like you to meet Harrison."

The Dubei woman rotated around on the stool, looking Harrison up and down.  "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise. I was briefly told about you and have been looking forward to meeting you all day."

At Eli's confused look Xu began to laugh quietly.  She looked between the two and he managed to swallow down the laughter.  "See?  I told you we'd already laughed over it."

"That's not an act?  He just...sounds exactly like you?"

Harrison flushed bright red to his ears.  "I don't think it's EXACT, and it's not an act.  I personally think it's a bit embarrassing but neither of us can help what we sound like."

Eli scratched just above an ear, blowing out a short huff.  "All right then... I guess so long as I can see who's talking it ought to be fine."  After a pause she smiled.   "Maybe just add your name after every sentence."

Xu chuckled and again gestured for Harrison to come in from the doorway.  "We'll figure something out.  I wonder if my master even noticed anything."

"I don't think he did," Harrison said.  Finally the man came in to stand at the corner of the desk.  "At least, he never mentioned it.  And I'm pretty sure he wasn't...I don't know, senile or anything.  He seemed as sharp as ever."  He paused, then gave Eli an awkward smile.  "Said me, Harrison, and not Dr. Xu."

They all laughed at that, and once he'd gotten his breath back Xu looked to Eli.  "Before we begin I'd like to ask - do you mind if Harrison sits in on your sessions, Eli?  It's completely up to you and whatever you find comfortable."

She considered that for a moment, then nodded.  "He can stay.  Might as well start him off right with a heaping dose of trauma.  If he can handle me he should be able to handle anything."

Xu nodded and leaned back in his chair.  "All right.  At any point if you want privacy I'm sure neither Phyllis nor Harrison would mind leaving the room."  He looked to the two to confirm and got a pair of nods; Harrison went to sit on the floor in front of the cabinet beside Phyllis (Xu made a note to go buy at least one more stool for the clinic in the morning).  

Then he looked back to Eli, and gave her a gentle nod.  "When you're ready."

Eli was silent for a moment, then brushed the loose hair on top of her head to the left.  "Well.  Recently I've had an indirect problem with Lee."

------------------------------------------------

"Looks like Old Bob is back in town."

It was early morning and Isaac was currently winning his fifth game of Cross Five; Eli looked up from the game board and spied a familiar looking duster coat-clad man wandering up the path.  "His name is Bob?"

"He says it is," Isaac answered.  He paused and placed his next piece before continuing. "A retired teacher from Vega 5, if he's to be believed.  Got tired of where he was and began to wander around.  He drifts into Portia every spring and autumn - harmless fellow but hard to talk to."

"What'd he teach?"  As Eli watched him the man slowed to a stop, slipped a hand into a pocket of his coat, then turned around and hurried off in the direction he'd come from.

"He's never said.  He mumbles a lot - has his better moments, some days more than others.  Those days when he's lucid he could talk your ear off."

Eli nodded and placed her next piece - she'd managed to line up four pieces eighteen times in this one game but it seemed entirely too easy for Isaac to block her from a win.  "I ran into - well, passed him - the other day.  Seemed friendly enough."

Four turns later and Isaac had again maneuvered his pieces so that he had two open ways of winning and Eli could only block one of them.  She huffed and reached out to start sweeping her black pieces off the board and into the appropriate leather pouch that held them.  "Never was all that great at board games.  If we were playing card games our roles would probably be reversed."

Isaac laughed.  "Need to learn how to strategize better, young one.  Not likely time to squeeze in another game before school starts but if you ever want to hear more of Portia's and the world's history feel free to come by for another game or two."

"I definitely will be - thank you, Isaac."

She handed him the leather pouch of game pieces and stood, moving in the direction of the schoolhouse.

So the man's name was Old Bob and he was also from Vega 5... Merlin hailed from there too and had urged her, several times, to go visit the city someday soon; it was certainly something she had put on her incredibly long To Do list, if only because Merlin had mentioned that a lot of living AIs were still functional out there.  Portia's only living - er, living living - AI was Ack and the robot was in need of repair...it baffled her that he hadn't tried to travel to Vega 5 to seek replacement parts since all AIs had self preservation coded into them as a standard.  He was missing an original leg, was dinged up, rusted in places and scratched all to hell, and he had chunks of his outer metal shell missing on the top and back of his head -- she could tell that at some point someone had tried building him a replacement leg but the servos whined on cold or rainy days, and it didn't look like there'd been any attempt to fix the holes in his head beyond him adopting a metal pot as a hat.  If Vega 5 had a large population of living AIs Eli was pretty certain there was a good chance they could clean, repair, and polish up Ack if he'd just go.

Maybe she could take the robot with her when she went...if someone was going with him it might convince him the trip was needed.  She'd bring it up if she ever seriously considered traveling; as it stood she could probably fix him up herself - it just wouldn't be all that pretty.  At the very least she should try to get those holes in his head fixed...she could only imagine how much rust might be INSIDE him at this point with such a large area where moisture could get in.

Soon enough the schoolhouse was in front of her and her train of thought regarding robot repairs was carefully set aside for later; the door was unlocked and Eli was greeted with the sight of a thin, dark haired woman sitting at the desk inside the door. She seemed a bit surprised to see Eli but stood to greet her as she walked in.

"Good morning," Eli said.  "I won't keep you long - I wanted to ask if you had any history or wildlife books you wouldn't mind letting me borrow."

The woman (Eli was pretty sure her name was Lucy - she'd only ever talked to the woman twice before) nodded to her, clasping her hands in front of her stomach and glancing toward what Eli assumed was the classroom.  "We have a few I'm not currently using during our lessons but they're fairly...elementary.  Simple, I mean.   Meant for younger children.  I can order more advanced ones from Vega 5 or Atara, if you don't mind waiting.  We'll be needing them in the upcoming years anyway."

"I wouldn't say no to any book, simple or not.  I'm not looking to cause any trouble or extra effort though."

Lucy shook her head.  "No, it's no problem at all.  There's a bookshelf just inside the door there, and it's certainly no extra trouble to order books ahead of time.  It may take several weeks though."

"No worries - it's not like I'm going anywhere," Eli replied.  

Lucy smiled faintly at that and sat back down; Eli hurried in to the bookshelf and skimmed the titles, picking up two books - one was a history book, one was a children's "survival guide" style book with cartoony, colorful pictures of plants and animals.  The information in it was written in very simple terms but it would serve as a decent starting point until she could get her hands on something more thorough.  She gave Lucy a wave as she headed out the door with the books tucked under an arm; as she was heading up the street to return to Selene's she spied Adam jogging down the hill, and once he spotted her his path altered so he was running right at her.

"What's up?"

"We've got tracks," was the man's reply.  "We didn't 'ear anything last night but there's footprints right outside the back of the tent - they go out to the east toward the river."

Eli frowned.  "Great - another unwelcome visitor."

"Right.  And with just me and Asher we can't split to go have a look.  Arlo's waiting for you out at the camp.  I'm going to find Sam and send her out too."

"I'll drop these off at home and head straight out," Eli said, waggling the books at him.

Adam nodded and quickly moved away, disappearing into town in search of Sam; Eli continued on but sped up to a jog and left the books sitting on her bedside table before heading out to the facility.  As Adam had said Arlo was standing outside the tent with Asher and he waved at her as she came into view.

"What do we have, gentlemen?" she asked as she finally reached them.

Asher jerked his head toward the tent.  "A tie came loose overnight - let in a pretty good draft.  When I got up this morning and went to fix it I found some footprints.  Can't exactly go traipsing off without some back up."

Eli nodded and headed around to the tent's backside; the tent was a big one and it was clear it was designed to be somewhat modular -- she could see where a middle section could be swapped out and the tent made shorter.  The section was attached with heavy zippers on either end that had extra flaps of canvas that could be tied down over said zippers to keep the wind from blowing straight through.

And, as he'd said, there was a mess of footprints.  The grass back here was a thick, tangled, fibrous mess - it was enough to keep the person from sinking too deeply into the mud beneath it (and thus avoid any noisy, wet, sucking sounds as they pulled their feet free) but while the grass had mostly sprung back from being trod on the grass blades were still visibly stained with mud, and it was plain to see how the tracks paced up and down the entire length of the back of the tent.  Had someone tried getting inside?

"And neither of you heard anything?" she called out.

"Nope," came Asher's reply from the front.  "Adam's sure he didn't hear a thing, and since he was out in front he didn't feel the draft.  Heck, I didn't feel the draft until I woke up and was getting ready to cook and swap out with him.  Came around and..."  

As he was talking he'd circled around and was standing at the western edge of the tent; rather than speak further he simply gestured at the tracks and Eli bent down to stick her hand next to a somewhat clear one to get a rough measurement -- the footprint was rather petite so that was likely another reason why this person hadn't sunk into the mud too much even if you took the grass cover into consideration.

"Right...I'll head out and see where these lead."  She straightened and looked back to Asher; Arlo was standing with him now too.  "You two going to stay put until Adam and Sam get here?"

"I'll come with you," Arlo replied.  "Sam can catch up."

She nodded and started to trek to the east; there was an easily followed trail heading away from the tent that skirted along the bottom of the bluffs - someone had obviously been focusing on approaching in a way that would make them especially hard to spot, but luckily for her and Arlo their muddied tracks were still plain and clear in the daylight.  

"Isn't this where Mali and Maddie were checking the last time we had someone out here?" Eli asked.

"I believe so.  They said they followed the land all the way out to the river - at that time there wasn't any sign that someone had climbed down."

"And when we found the man on the cliffs there wasn't any sign that there'd been a second person," she said after a pause.  "If we're going to keep getting snoops from the north I might have to see if I can work up some trail cameras..."

"Some what?"

"Trail cameras.  Recording devices you charge up, hide somewhere, and leave running to get candid pictures of wildlife, usually.  They're triggered by motion only, to conserve battery life.  Though I doubt I could manage anything that could transmit to a computer somewhere...will probably have to rig up a separate hard drive to store things on.  BUT, point being, if we can get enough of those up in this area we could probably catch a glimpse of our little spies sneaking around up here.  What's to the north?"

"Sandrock is to the immediate north.  From what I've been hearing the town's fallen on some hard times and a lot of people have left to go seek their fortunes elsewhere so it's probably easy to go around the town without being seen.  I'll see if Gale can send discrete word to the Mayor there and ask about any influxes of people going through the town that seem out of place.  We've been seeing a lot of tourists lately because we've completed some roads over the last couple of years so we might not get any definitive answers though."

"It's a good enough place to start.  What's further north than that?"

"Atara is to Sandrock's northwest, Lucien is to Atara's northwest, and Duvos is to Lucien's northwest.  Highwind and Barnarock are to the northeast, and Ethea is almost directly north of Sandrock."

"And from what Isaac was telling me this morning about the Free Cities and historical politics I doubt we're getting spies from anywhere except Duvos," Eli said quietly.  "Ask Gale if he can check in with Lucien and Atara, and...Highwind.  Wait, no - Ethea.  Or really, any place that's connected to any other place with established transportation.  I hope it's not just Duvos that spies on everyone else?"

Arlo shrugged.  "I've no idea.  I'd certainly hope we've got eyes inside Duvos after our last war with them."

They trudged on in silence for a time; Eli was keeping a careful watch on the bluffs moreso than on the tracks they were trailing -- so far she'd not seen any sign of where a person may have been climbing around, and the cliffs were too tall for her to believe that someone could have just jumped from there (plus, even if they HAD jumped, they'd still need to get back up to wherever their camp may be).

There was no sign beyond the tracks until they finally walked all the way out to the waterfall.

"And there's where our visitor came from," Arlo growled.

The bluffs were still just as tall but there was a narrow shelf that was closer to the ground that extended out to the east and gradually widened right where the waterfall roared over the rocks.  Pounded into the cliffside were iron...they looked like iron rods with a wide eye on the end, through which a rope was threaded.  Hanging on either end of the line of rods were lengths of knotted rope to help someone scale up the rock face, and then the rope stretched across and under where the waterfall flowed to connect the two ends. The river that the waterfall fed into below them was a good fifty feet down; the steeply sloping rock that made up the sides of this ravine was surprisingly smooth and considering how much water was pouring into its narrow riverbed Eli suspected the current below would be dangerously strong.

"Pretty risky...a tumble from here would probably drown you, assuming you didn't break your skull against the cliffs on the way down," Eli muttered, letting her gaze trace over the rope and then trail down into the river - from up here she couldn't see anything in the river but that didn't mean there weren't rocks waiting beneath the surface either.  "Not to mention how uncomfortable it'd be to get soaking wet - it's still pretty chilly."

"It's a long walk to go around to a safer place to cross," Arlo said.  "And there's a lot of places out that way where someone could hole up and hide."

She stepped back from the edge of the ravine and eyed the rope-and-rod crossing.  "I could easily sabotage that without anyone able to tell until they were using it but I'd rather not murder our spy...I want to catch and have a little chat with them."

"Should we just cut it down and take the rods with us?"

Eli considered that for a moment; it would clue in the spy that someone had definitely found their crossing point but unless they were dealing with a champion of cluelessness there's no way that this person couldn't have known that they'd leave tracks behind.  Taking it down now would force them to use another way or to rebuild this spot...but even then there was a lot of territory out here to keep an eye on and not enough eyes to go around.

"Let's leave it for now.  I think our best course of action would be to get some trail cameras made -- I can get the cameras and drives out of the computers in the dorm area, and then I'm sure Selene could whip up a case to hold all the pieces."

"Did all computers have cameras in them?"

"Yep," Eli answered.  She headed back the way they'd come and heard Arlo following along.  "How else would you call someone?"

"Why would you need a camera to call someone?"

"So you could see who you're talking to.  Pretty simple to fake someone's voice with the right tech - it's a bit harder to fake someone's face across a video call since those programs were easily detected.  Not impossible, but harder."

Arlo was quiet for a few steps.  "-and I guess it was nicer to see the person you were talking to as well."

"Yep."

They walked back to the Pig's camp in silence then; Adam and Sam were nowhere to be seen but Asher said they'd arrived and then left not too long after she and Arlo had headed off but that they had chosen to climb up the cliffs and check things out up there.

"Beginning to think we need some backup..." Asher mused after they'd filled him in on the iron rods and rope guard rail.  "We always worried that there were still Duvos agents listening in to our telegraphs... Mali got jumped once because of that," he added, looking to Eli.  "Word must've made it back to the empire pretty quick about this place.  Got a couple people out here spying, noticed that Mali and the others left, and now they're getting bolder."

"With the locking car door it shouldn't be too much of a problem," Eli said after a pause.  "There's no way they could break or cut their way in without being noticed.  My concern would be just HOW bold they get if they think there's only one of you guys out there."

Asher nodded, rubbing a finger over the scar across his nose.  "I already know what it feels like to be considered an easy target, believe me."

"Why would they be so interested to get into a medical facility though?" Arlo asked.  "That's not the sort of tech they tend to try and seize."

"Maybe they don't believe it's a medical facility and need to figure it out themselves?" Asher offered, shrugging.  "Or maybe they just want to junk it all for parts. I can't begin to imagine how those people think."  He looked between the tent and the elevator car.  "Mali said she'd come back once the prisoner was delivered, convicted, and she got Greg and Maddie home.  If we can catch her before her trip back here we can ask for a couple more hands -- but also if we don't even just having her here too would be a help."

Eli eyed the tent, then nodded to herself. "I can move out here for a bit."

"What, really?  You don't have to," Asher said after a pause.  "Adam and I've got this for now, no problem."

Arlo sighed, crossing his arms.  "Maybe you do but only for people trying to get inside - you can't split up to follow anyone.  It might be best if Eli, and maybe myself as well, come out here to help until Mali gets back."

"You sure?" Asher asked again.  "It's rough living - we don't mind it but you two-"

"Let's head into town, talk to Gale, and discuss what we'll need to bring back out with us," Eli interrupted, looking to Arlo.  

"Agreed.  We'll be back in a bit," Arlo said with a nod to Asher.  Asher sighed and threw up his hands in a sign of defeat and sat back down on a short stump of wood that was serving as a seat beside the firepit.

They had just reached the edge of the tree farm when Eli spied a figure moving toward them through the trees; she ducked around one and circled further to the west and spied Old Bob wandering toward them.  The man had his head down and was tiptoeing through the grass - clearly trying to avoid the worst of the mud.  She moved to join back up with Arlo, nodding her head toward the drifter.

"Kind of far out from town, aren't you?" she called toward him.

Bob's head jerked up and he stared around wildly until he finally caught sight of them; he visibly relaxed and offered them a half smile as they came within roughly fifteen feet of each other.  "Yeah.  Don't like towns after being cooped up in 'em.  Seen the walls out there?  Open sky.  Like being closer to the stars."

"No stars out yet - you're a bit early," she replied.

"I know.  Takes awhile to get there.  Takes time.  Taking my time, yeah?"

"Be on the lookout, Bob," Arlo said then.  "We think a thief is hiding out in the marsh somewhere."

Bob flared his nostrils at them and came to a stomping halt.  "Thieves.  Bah.  Nothing valuable on me.  Bad business still."

"If you see anyone somewhere they shouldn't be let the Civil Corps know, all right?"

The man nodded his head vigorously.  "Wouldn't know who belongs where but I'll try."

They kept walking; Eli turned around to walk backwards and watch Bob's meandering path as he headed toward the rear of the farm where she knew there were some ruins and a old stone wall that was mostly intact, if a bit segmented.

"Does that guy usually get the run of the town?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, does he just go wherever and no one stops him?"

Arlo nodded.  "More or less.  Of course, he doesn't trespass somewhere he shouldn't go.  He sticks to the public areas, or wanders around in the fields -- I see him fishing a lot and scavenging on the beach for shells but he never hangs around for very long.  And he's never tried to steal anything or hurt anyone."

"And he's been doing this for years?"

Arlo nodded again; Eli turned around and walked facing forward once she'd lost sight of the man among the trees.  Knowing they had another unwanted visitor had her suddenly suspicious of the old man but it didn't take a genius to see how the man's large booted feet were much bigger than the size of the prints up near the tent.  Rather than dwell on it she tried making a mental list of things she wanted to tote out to the camp; clothing and food supplies were easy enough but she wondered if Selene would mind if she borrowed a toolbox to keep onsite out there -- usually the builder carried it back and forth but it didn't seem logical for the woman to only have one set of tools.  

"Meet you at the city hall," she said once they'd gotten down the road to Portia's gates.  As Arlo headed up the hill toward the Civil Corps building Eli headed toward Selene's workshop; the lights were on and there was a steady plume of steam coming out of the exhaust pipe on the roof.  

Oh.  Along with asking to borrow tools she should also mention she'd eventually need some steel cases for some cobbled together trail cameras.

The roar of machines going full steam greeted her as she pushed the door to the workshop open.  Selene was up to her elbows in the guts of a...well, Eli had no idea what that particular machine was but it was disconnected from the rest of the system in here and was in five dozen pieces across the floor.

"You uh...need a hand?"

"Nope!  Just have to take the whole dang thing apart to replace a single cog..." came the irritated answer.  "Did you need something?"

"A couple somethings but it can wait."

"I'll just be a few minutes more...want to get this thing out before I stop."

"Sure."

Eli shut the door behind her and leaned against the door frame, watching and listening as Selene grunted and griped and finally twisted something loose with an "AHA!" that Eli could just barely hear over the noise of the rest of the machinery running.  She fiddled around with a few more metal pieces then chucked the aforementioned cog carelessly over a shoulder; Eli watched it as it hit the ground and bounced off into a corner, chuckling to herself.

"Ok!  What'd you need?" Selene asked as she extricated herself from the machine's inner bits.  She had oil smears from fingertips to halfway up to her elbow, and Eli could spy a scrape that was thankfully above the oil line but was oozing a bit of blood.

"-you want a second to clean yourself off and get that taken care of?" Eli asked after a moment.

Selene glanced down at the cut - by her expression Eli guessed the woman hadn't even noticed it until it had been pointed out.  "Hrm...stupid thing.  I knew I shouldn't have tried to increase the belt efficiency at the cost of making that one part that much harder to reach.  Oh well!   What were you needing?"

There was a sink (Selene called it the "slop sink" ) in the corner next to the control panels for the machinery; it was partially walled off to prevent any chances of water splashing onto anything it shouldn't.  Selene beelined for it and started scrubbing the oil and grime off with a soap that looked like sand and smelled like lemons.

"I was wondering if I could borrow some tools to keep on hand out at the facility.  I'll be staying out there at the Pig's camp for a couple days and figured I'd keep myself busy putting together a couple of projects -- and said projects will also need some containers to fit into."

"Oooh."  Selene's voice echoed oddly in the sink area.  "What're you making?"

"They're called trail cameras.  You basically have a camera, battery, and hard drive in a box hidden out in the wilds with a motion trigger.  It'll record for a set amount of time then turn itself back off.  Pretty sure I can put together a couple."

"Neat," Selene replied.  A few minutes later and she turned around, hands bright red from scrubbing but with all traces of the oil gone.  "Take your pick of what's on the shelves there and if there's something I know I'll be needing immediately I'll let you know."

Eli nodded and moved over to the nearly floor-to-ceiling shelves that took up the lion's share of the northern wall; she'd need some cutters, screwdrivers, maybe a hammer or rubber mallet, a couple wrenches... She began to pick out tools and then jumped a bit when Selene appeared at her elbow.

"Give me the dimensions you'll need and I can work up the outer casings, no problem," the builder said.  The woman reached passed Eli to grab an especially heavy metal clamp before moving back over to sit it on top of the disassembled machine.  "What's so important about trail cameras that you need to stay out there to make them?" she called over a shoulder.

"Just didn't want to have to walk back and forth a ton," Eli answered.  It wasn't technically a lie but it wasn't the full truth; until she and Arlo talked to Gale she wasn't certain she should be sharing any details of new Duvos spies being found in the area.  Once she had an armload of things she thought she'd need she carried it over to Selene to let her inspect it all.

"I...think we're good," Selene said after a moment to take inventory of everything Eli was holding.  "I don't have any spare boxes to let you borrow but I've got some sturdy bags, if that's ok?"

"Works for me.  I'll get you the plans for the camera cases once I've seen how it all needs to fit together."

"Sounds good.  Let's go get the bags."

Selene led the way out of the workshop and toward the house with Eli following in her wake.  That had been a lot quicker than she'd expected - she was probably going to beat Arlo to city hall at this rate.

---------------------------------------------------

The plan was a simple one: Arlo and Eli would stay awake overnight, sitting at the back of the tent.  The zipper had been undone but the upper ties left secured to hide that fact; it would take just one clean swipe with a sharp blade to sever the ties and allow them to come rushing out the back of the tent at any hint of someone snooping around.  Asher and Adam continued their shifts as usual, and during the day Arlo and Eli were careful to remain out of sight as much as possible (which was easy considering most of the day they were sleeping anyhow). Tonight was the third night; it wasn't THE most boring vigil Arlo had ever taken but it was definitely dull to be sitting in the silence, in the dark, listening for anything out of the ordinary.  

Eli at least had something to do; she was sketching out (in PEN and the flickering light of the campfire, no less) some sort of diagram for a case for those trail cameras she'd been working on in those few hours of the day where being silent wasn't required.  The crate of parts she had to work with was sitting at the foot of her cot -- under Stewart's guidance Selene, Petra, and Merlin had cordoned off a section of a dorm floor and had taken apart personal computers there along with some gadgets out of the ceilings and walls.  Arlo had a passing interest in Old World tech but didn't know much about it; to him it seemed like an awful lot of parts for what Eli had said would be a "few" cameras.  Watching her work was fascinating but it didn't take an Old World expert to see how she had at least twenty of some of those parts - twenty was not something he would refer to as "a few" and thus far she hadn't tossed anything out as unserviceable either.

Maybe it was just overkill for the sake of not having to go back down and take more things apart... Eli had stated she wanted to leave as much of that facility intact as possible in the hopes they could, in the future, utilize it as it had once been (sort of) -- he supposed the less they fiddled with things, the fewer chances something would break.

He moved his attention away from Eli and Old World musings and stretched his legs out; sitting still for hours at a time wasn't something he was used to (or especially liked) and with him and Eli keeping a low profile out here they'd postponed their usual morning training sessions.  There was a small concern that whoever was spying would notice the sudden change if they'd been watching the city too but there wasn't much that could be done about it; he wished something could be done for how restless he felt.

Well...he shouldn't be dwelling on THAT particular part of it.  A couple days - maybe a week - without a morning run wouldn't kill him.  

With a silent sigh Arlo leaned back and braced his hands against the floor behind him; the ground under the tent was lined with a thick, rubber-coated canvas and it squeaked quietly as he shifted and the flashlight in his back pocket rubbed against it.  The tiny noise drew Eli's attention and he mouthed 'sorry' at her -- she nodded and went back to her sketching.  

As he'd already done dozens of times tonight he closed his eyes and went through a mental tally of the "normal" noises: the sound of Eli's sketching (barely noticeable), the pop of the campfire out in front, the slight creaking of rope as the wind caused the tent to shift from time to time, the whistle of that same wind across the opening in the top of the tent that would let the smoke of any fires filter out (Asher said during winter the campfire had been INSIDE the tent for better warmth but it wasn't needed now).   There was the sound of the grass against Asher's boots whenever the man got up and paced around; if he turned his head slightly to the right Arlo could hear the soft sounds of Adam breathing as he slept.

Everything seemed both too quiet and also too loud.  It was honestly starting to drive him a bit crazy.

But then there was a...noise.  Hardly more than a whisper of something against something else.  It was so quiet Arlo couldn't identify what had caused it but it was different enough against the backdrop of sounds he'd grown so accustomed to over these last few nights that it stuck out as clearly as someone clapping their hands to get his attention.

Arlo opened his eyes and looked to Eli; she had her head tilted back, eyes toward the roof of the tent. He turned his head a bare fraction of an inch to his left and closed his eyes again -- there it was again.   Something rasping against something.  Grass on...on something.  He still couldn't tell what it was.

Again he opened his eyes and glanced over to Eli; she was moving, ever so slowly, to put her notepad and pen down.  The only thing moving were her hands - her head was still angled toward the roof.  In the campfire's dim light Arlo noted her eyes flicking over to him; when the notepad was safely deposited on the floor she used her hands to lift her backside off the floor and then gingerly turned herself over so that she was on her hands and the balls of her feet.  Arlo imitated the movement - there was no squeaking from the flashlight he had in his pocket this time.

Eli silently raised a hand and pointed a finger at him, two fingers toward her eyes, and then those same fingers at the unzipped section of the tent.

With a careful gesture he indicated the knife that was sitting within reach of both of them; she nodded to him, then pointed to herself, then to the front entrance of the tent, and then made a circle motion with her hand.

He understood all that as she wanted him to take the knife and watch the gap in the tent, and she was going to...circle around from the outside, he assumed.  

Very, very carefully he stood and crossed the few feet between where he'd been sitting and the back "wall" of the tent; the rasping noise was slightly louder now and he felt it was coming from a point somewhere below his head -- that made sense, if this were footsteps he was hearing.  He stopped a hair's breadth away from the canvas and waited, hardly daring to breathe but holding the knife at the ready; there was a tiny gap between the zippered ends of the canvas but it was so narrow he couldn't see a thing through it...but he was certain that if someone was out there and tried to mess with the ties again that he would see the fabric move and know that it was time to strike.

A very quick check showed that Eli was creeping out of the tent; he returned his attention to the zippered canvas and waited.

------------------------------------------------

Asher had seen her out of the corner of his eye; he looked surprised for a moment, then immediately concerned but to his credit he didn't say a word nor did he get up from where he was sitting on the stump beside the fire.

Eli gestured to him - he needed to stand up (QUIETLY), and go around the tent on the western side.  He seemed to get the gist of it, much like Arlo had, from her silent hand movements.  That was good. If they circled around at the same speed, even if they were heard coming, they'd catch whoever was back there between them.  She was really hoping it wasn't a wild animal.

Thankfully around the front of the tent the grass had been trampled beyond recovery; it was too wet and too broken to make any noise as she moved across the tent's front side but once she reached the eastern corner she knew she'd be making noise as she moved.

It couldn't be helped, but it could be mitigated if she moved slowly enough.

Even at a snail's pace it didn't take long to get to the back corner of the tent; she was still out of sight, and still hadn't seen or heard any indication that whatever was behind here knew she was there.

She took a deep breath, counted to three in her head, then jumped out around the corner.

And...what--

She could see through to the other end of the tent but there was a-

Oh hell.  

As Asher came around his corner there was a vaguely human-shaped area back here that was like trying to peer through a window smeared with petroleum jelly -- indistinct, blurry, almost impossible to see the outline of in the dark.

Eli rushed forward for the middle-most area of the blurry blob; whatever it was ducked her swung fist and for a brief instant disappeared against the backdrop of the landscape now that it wasn't directly between her and Asher.  

"What in the world-"

Eli ignored Asher and hurried forward with her arms outstretched toward where she THOUGHT the cloaked figure had moved; something struck her arm hard and knocked it away, and the blur moved closer to the tent in response. In the same instant the back segment of the tent flew open and Arlo stepped out and the blur struck out at him.  It clipped his ear and shoulder and instinctively he swung the knife -- to Eli's surprise it connected solidly.

So solidly in fact that it was yanked out of Arlo's hand and now she could see the handle of the blade seemingly floating in midair in the midst of the smear-shaped person; he'd stabbed their spy in the shoulder - upper arm, at least, judging by the height.  Eli aimed a flurry of punches in the general direction of the knife's handle and the blur retreated rapidly and right into Asher who got his arms around part of them but then immediately took what Eli assumed was the back of the person's head to his nose and his grip loosened enough that the figure slipped out.  

The handle went blurry for a moment and then was moving down and to the side - the cloaked figure had yanked it free and was now wielding it -- or, was, as almost as quickly as they'd pulled it free they launched it at Asher.  Thankfully it hit him hilt-first but it was still a solid blow; Eli heard the sound of metal hitting what could only be teeth followed by Asher's grunt of pain, and the figure didn't pause before landing a solid (and nearly impossible to see coming) fist into Arlo's sternum.

As the figure then turned and rushed her Eli swung again; her knuckles grated against something plastic-feeling, ribbed and with tiny beading, and it was confirmation enough to determine that this person had somehow got their hands on an Active Camouflage Environmental Support Suit - or as they were sometimes called an "Access Suit."  It was a jumpsuit covered in sensors, wires, and tiny projectors that could render someone more or less invisible to the naked eye and also contained a small generator that scrambled camera feeds to make them harder to spot there too.  How the hell had one of these survived 300 years?

It clearly wasn't fully functioning since Eli could see the human-shaped blur but even then...just...how in the hell?

'It can't be an original.  There's just no way,' was repeating over and over in her mind as she was bowled over by the figure.

As she hit the ground and rolled she reached to the small of her back; Selene had fashioned her two holsters for that revolver she'd taken off the first spy.  One was a thigh holster that she planned to wear when warmer weather hit, and the other went at the small of her back which allowed her to hide the gun under her jacket.  She really, really didn't want to take a pot shot at this spy -- she didn't want to have to shoot anyone at all since this world lacked the medical equipment needed to assure a high survival rate.

The problem in this immediate moment though was if Duvos had the plans for those things and equipped their soldiers with them it would be disastrous for the rest of the continent, but if this spy was a one-off and she took care of this right here, right now...

She drew and aimed for what she thought was the center of mass and then fired off all three rounds in the gun.  For a moment she swore she saw the blur stagger but then it was too far out into the darkness to be visible.

They were gone.

Behind her Arlo was checking on Asher, and there was the brief sound of pounding feet as Adam care tearing around the edge of the tent barefoot and without his coat on.

"What the 'ell happened?!"

"We had a visitor," Eli sighed.  "It's not good news."

Arlo helped Asher stand up, steadying him as he swayed; Asher tilted his head forward -- blood was pouring out of his mouth and nose both.  He fumbled for a handkerchief and once he'd gotten it half out of his pocket Arlo snagged it and held it to the man's face.

"What even was that?" Arlo asked.  "It was like trying to see the wind."

"That was an Access Suit.  And it's not a good thing if Duvos has their hands on one and figures out how to make them."

Asher moved his head to the side to spit around the handkerchief - there was something small and white in it.  "Great.  So now our spies are invisible."

"Not ENTIRELY invisible.  Which is the only silver lining here -- if you can see the person in the Access Suit it means its not working correctly.  We shouldn't be able to see ANYTHING but we could see enough to sort of tell where they were."  She flipped the cylinder out on the revolver and collected the casings - they could be reused and ammo was about to become a commodity - then slotted in three more bullets and clicked it closed again before returning it to the holster at her back.  "Which also means the trail cameras are going to be useless because those suits are designed to mess with cameras too."

Adam looked at her, confused.  "Invisible suits?  Screwing with cameras?"

"Wouldn't tampering with a camera alert someone to your being there, though?" Arlo asked.  He was still holding Asher steady; the blonde finally lifted his head to look ahead at Eli and flashed Arlo a thumbs up as he took over holding the handkerchief to his face.

"It does, but you still can't physically see the person in the suit and looking through a camera feed just gives you a general idea of where they are."

"So, sort of what we just saw but weren't supposed to see," Asher said.  His voice was muffled and distorted - like a small child holding their nose to speak funny.  He also had a slight whistle to his speech now and Eli assumed he'd either broken a tooth or had it knocked out of him entirely.  "Just something blurry without much of a shape."

"Shouldn't we be chasing this spy?" Adam interrupted then.  "They're getting away!"

Eli shook her head.  "No point to chasing something we can't see."  She turned to Asher and Arlo.  "Head into town and get yourselves looked at by Dr. Xu.  I can hold the fort down with Adam - I can't guarantee the spy won't come back tonight though.  We know about their little secret now but they're still pretty hard to spot."

"I don't think I need Xu," Asher replied.  "Just a bloody nose and chipped tooth."

"Does the tooth hurt?"

"No more than my nose does."

Eli let out a long sigh, turning to look after where the spy had run.   "Well.  Even still - whether you chipped down to the nerves or not it'll probably have to come out."

There was a quiet groan from behind her.  "Damn it...gonna have to go all the way to Seesai to get a fake one, too."

As she turned around she saw Adam rolling his eyes at Asher. "You can get 'em in Ethea you uppity bucket head."

"Yeah but they aren't as real looking as the teeth that woman in Seesai makes, and they discolor a lot quicker than hers too.  I don't want a random yellow tooth front and center in my mouth."

"Boys," Eli interrupted, smiling a bit.  "Worry about your vanity later and get cleaned up."

The three headed around the western side of the tent; she heard a faint "at least this time you had your pants on" from Asher (probably - hopefully - aimed at Adam).  Before she left she went and picked up the dropped knife -- it was a 6-inch long blade that folded into a heavy metal handle that was inlaid with wood pieces.  She stuck it into her waistband and glanced out toward the marsh.

That spy, if they were smart, would lay low for a few days - especially if they had a stab wound to tend to.

Actually.

"Hey guys - I'm going to go talk to Xu," she called out as she rounded the corner of the tent.

Inside Adam was helping Arlo clean Asher's face up; they had poured a bottle of water into a bowl and were alternating between a wet cloth and a drier one as they dabbed off blood and assessed the damage to Asher's lips, nose, and teeth.  When she poked her head through the flap only Adam looked up to her.

"What for?"

"Arlo managed to stab the bastard.  If Xu has anyone coming in with a stab wound on their upper extremities anywhere..."

Now the man gave her a grin.  "Then that'd be our bastard."

"Exactly.  I'll be back in a bit."

---------------------------------------------

It was early morning; he wasn't used to being up this early yet - his master tended to spend the morning hours catching up on correspondences over a cup of hot tea so Harrison would get to sleep in until it was time for his lessons.  Xu didn't respond to any letters that Harrison had seen yet, nor did he drink (or even like) tea, but he definitely shared the master's habit of getting up bright and early to get tasks done.  It wasn't a habit Harrison had picked up from either of the two and it wasn't one he WANTED to pick up either but it didn't seem like he'd get a choice regarding it.

The last couple of days Xu had opened the clinic to let Harrison inside, then had let him mind the place for an hour or so while Xu went on a morning walk to pick fresh herbs; the next couple of hours afterward were spent learning the different ways of preparing the herbs into different remedies.   Harrison's master (who was also Xu's master - so, their master?) had taught him a lot about teas, tinctures, salves, and other similar things but had mostly focused on the sorts of materials one would find in Seesai.  Xu knew all about that and then some -- Portia had a surprising amount of wild-growing herbs all around the city and Harrison loved learning the name, the feel, and the smell of each new one.

Xu had seemed a bit distracted this morning when he'd let Harrison inside; there was a new pile of paperwork on the doctor's desk regarding the clinic expansion -- he hoped nothing had fallen through on those plans. Xu was so excited and so was he; the thought of studying medicine under a real living AI...it was more than he could have imagined.

A little bit scary too.  Would the Church get mad at him?  Surely they wouldn't begrudge knowledge that cured the sick and helped the injured.

His thoughts were interrupted when the clinic door opened; he actually jumped a bit at the sound -- who would be here this early?  Xu had barely been gone ten minutes.

It was a slender, petite woman.  She had damp black hair pulled up into a bun on the top of her head, big blue eyes, pale skin, and had a thick scarf on along with a jacket that she was only wearing on the right side of her with the left half of the jacket flapping free.

Her left lower arm was swaddled in a pale blue towel that had a slowly spreading bloodstain on it.

"Oh, dear - you're bleeding.  Come in."

The woman nodded and scurried over to the desk; Harrison instead waved her over toward the hospital bed area where a rolling metal table sat then he quickly washed his hands before heading over himself.  He carefully guided her arm over the table and began to peel the towel back.

"Good morning.  I was on the beach and fell onto some driftwood and it uh...stuck."

Harrison gingerly pulled the towel free and winced when he revealed the stick of driftwood that had pierced cleanly through the outer edge of her arm.   The ends had some scrape marks and had been clearly broken off on each end; it had probably been a much longer piece and she'd broken it down to size to get the towel around it.  It was about as thick as his pinky finger and at first glance it looked to be just through the upper layers of fat and skin - it didn't seem deep enough to have knicked an artery or damaged muscle.  "Can you move your fingers?"

She wiggled her fingers but it was clear it hurt to do so; he nodded and hurried over to a cabinet.  

"That's good - let me get a few things to numb that so I can remove the stick."  

"Ok.  I'll be glad for some numbing - it hurts."

He came back with an armload of bottles and rolls of gauze, and the little leather-bound kit that held Xu's surgical tools.  The woman was surprisingly calm as he set to injecting an anesthetic but a few moments later it was clear it was kicking in as she visibly relaxed; she wriggled a bit to let the jacket fall off her and into the floor.

Now he set to opening up the things he'd need and cutting a few lengths of gauze to have immediately at hand for when he got that branch free; with everything ready he paused to take a final, careful, close up look at what he was about to tackle.

As he'd already noticed the stick was about the width of his pinky; it seemed incredibly bad luck that the branch had penetrated rather than just snapped as it didn't seem all that strong.  Without the ends of the stick he couldn't really tell which direction the stick had penetrated from - the best he could guess was it entered from the back of the arm and come out the top and the branch was a little lose inside its "hole" on the top of her arm - a bigger exit wound than entry.

Very carefully he tested how easily it could move; to his surprise it seemed very willing to slide out of place and soon he had the little eight inch long piece of wood in hand.

"Wow, that was easy."

He offered the woman a reassuring smile.  "It sure was - you're lucky.  Now to clean it up."

The edges of what he thought was the entry point of the injury were pretty neat and had an obvious ring of dirt around it.  The bleeding had mostly stopped, which was a good sign; he pulled out a tiny penlight from Xu's surgical kit and had a quick look around the inner part of the entry wound and didn't see any immediate debris that might be stuck in there -- no splinters or anything like that.  When he checked the bigger top hole though he could see dark slivers of polished-looking wood.

Clicking off the penlight he swapped it for a pair of tweezers and began plucking the splinters free.  Once he'd gotten all that he could see he sanitized the edges of the wound (though he couldn't quite get all the dirt off from the entry point - maybe that was the start of bruising instead) and flushed saline through the entire puncture to clean out any dirt or sand that he couldn't see.

"All right...now-"

At that moment the clinic door opened; Harrison paused mid-sentence and looked up to see Dr. Xu framed in the doorway with a bundle of something leafy and green in one hand.  At the sight of them Xu let the plants drop to the floor and hurried over.

"What happened?"

"She says she fell," Harrison answered.

The woman looked between them with clear confusion on her face.  "Am I hearing double?"

"No, sorry," Xu replied.  "We just sound alike. Funny coincidence."

The doctor came over and, to Harrison's surprise, didn't immediately take over from him; in fact he seemed more interested in gauging what Harrison had done thus far.

"Well at least you're not twins," the woman laughed.

Harrison managed a smile at that but went on with finishing cleaning out the wound.  "As I was about to say, I can't stitch this up because there's a risk that if there's anything in there that the saline didn't get out it'll cause an infection.  What you'll need to do is keep this clean, change the bandages several times a day - especially if they get wet, sweaty, or dirty - and let whatever drains out of there drain out.  If it starts bleeding again or gets infected come right back and we'll see what else needs to be done."

As he talked to looked over to Xu; the man was nodding approvingly at him, and Harrison felt a small surge of pride before he turned his attention back to the woman.

"Ok.  Can I buy some things for pain and also some bandages?"

"Of course," Xu answered before Harrison could.  He left Harrison to finish up with the injury and went over to begin gathering what the woman would need.

She looked between them again and then leaned in toward Harrison.  "So are you two...related, or something?"

Harrison shook his head and began to slather on an antibiotic cream.  "Nope.  He's my teacher."

"Oh.  Wild.  Are you both from here?"

"I'm from Lucien," Harrison replied.  "I'm not sure about the doctor."

The woman grinned at him.  "I'm from Lucien too.  Small world."

Harrison paused to smile at her, then began to wind the bandage around her arm. "Way smaller than it used to be, that's for sure."

Xu came over then with a cloth bag; the woman visibly winced when Xu put a hand on her right shoulder and he was quick to yank it back.

"I'm sorry - I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's ok.  I think I uh, sprained my shoulder when I fell.  I tried to catch myself but managed to flip myself over and really waggle this thing around when I did."  She pointed at the length of wood taken out of her arm.  "I probably made it a lot worse."

"It's really not that bad.  I'm actually surprised."  Harrison tied off the bandage and straightened, blowing out a sigh.  "You got really lucky.  It was a really clean wound."

"I guess so."  The woman turned to Xu and eyed the bag.  "How much is that."

"This should last you four or five days and it's 460 gols."

The woman held her good hand out for the bag then seemed to think better of it and began to dig in her pockets instead.  "That's a lot less than I was expecting.  I'll take it."

Harrison started cleaning up as Xu handled the money and final instructions for the wound care.  When the woman had gone Xu then retrieved the bundle of herbs and came over to sit them on his desk.

"Quite a morning, it seems."

Harrison nodded as he swept the soiled gauze into the trash can and began to clean up blood spots.  The section of driftwood was still on the table; he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, then found it easily snapped in two between his fingers.  "What rotten luck to have fallen in just the right way to get this through your arm."

He threw it away on top of the gauze and went to wash his hands.

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In its September 2018 report, 'CRM Software Market Research Report - Global Forecast to 2023,'Market research firm Market Research Future forecasts the CRM market to grow up to 35 billion by 2023. In addition, the CRM market's compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will be 6 percent between 2017 and 2023, according to the report. A key area for CRM growth in 2018 and 2019 will be the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) to leading CRM platforms. Manufacturers like Salesforce and Microsoft are either building their own AI engines to enhance their CRM capabilities or partnering with the likes of IBM's Watson and similiar players to integrate AI's benefits into their offerings. This will have significant impact in any CRM's ability to parse data and draw new insights from all kinds of customer interactions, and that has a direct impact on CRM revenue as market research firm, Statista, details below.

The Revenue Impact of AI Adoption in CRM

Such a revenue impact is possible because AI-enhanced CRM is literally a quantum leap ahead of what many companies still call customer relationship management even today. Even now, employees might use a spreadsheet to simply pass on information about past sales via email threads. Or worse, such information is often left to casual word of mouth, which means it's often missing when needed or it's entirely forgotten. CRM software keeps this information in one place, efficiently organizes it, and makes it possible to take immediate action with it. Such actions can include sending a loyal customer a gift card on their birthday or offering an up-sell opportunity to a platform from which you know their business can benefit (based on previous conversations). It's also a great way to woo back inactive customers. The key is to select the software that's right for the way your team works. The last thing you want is to see employees fighting new software instead of interacting with the customer.

Crm Software For Mac

CRM software isn't just about tracking and maintaining contact information. While most look to CRM software as primarily a sales tool, it's moved beyond that space. Marketing and customer service departments can dramatically improve their offerings and operations with CRM as well by using its data to more effectively segment demographics and record and reuse customer incident information. CRM software also helps coordinate interdepartmental actions. For example, the sales team can take advantage of something a customer service representative discovered in a separate transaction. Depending upon the software you choose, you can set and measure sales goals, deliver and track email marketing campaigns, or keep an eye on what people are saying on social media.

Pricing and Add-ons

Price can be a significant factor when evaluating CRM software, but that analysis should focus on more than just the upfront costs. Most of the CRM software we looked at offers per-user pricing but it's important to check what's included in that price and which features you actually need.

Training can eat up a chunk of the budget as can upgrades and ongoing support. Consider how much it would cost to integrate the software with existing systems and whether or not you would need additional equipment. That mobile implementation looks slick on the vendor's website, but will it still look that slick once you've designed the customized CRM forms your business will use every day? Does it mean the sales or customer service teams need new smartphones or maybe even tablets? These costs can quickly add up.

Taking the time investment into consideration is why trying out more than one program is key. This way, you can choose the software that will be most efficient for your company. If you have the resources to train and onboard staff and customize the software yourself, then eventually it will start to work for you. But smaller teams can't afford to invest in software that asks a lot up front; you need something that will be up and running in a day in most cases. Read the support documentation and you'll get an idea of setup complexity and any issues you might bump into with the software you already have. Use the free evaluation period to try out important features: import data, add information manually, connect accounts, and assign tasks to other users. Take note of how helpful the software is and whether or not it creates more work. Keep track of how often you have to consult the help system to complete a basic task.

As CRM software has grown more sophisticated, it has branched out into many different directions. There are plenty of options for implementing your CRM in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model or for deploying it on-premises by using your own server. Cloud-based CRM is rapidly growing in popularity because it means you can quickly get up to speed and don't have to worry about managing software on your own servers, which adds complexity and cost. You can look for the software that has deep hooks into social media management and analytics platforms so you can record customer interactions on Facebook or Twitter. Plus, you should definitely consider CRM software that integrates with your business phone system so you can capture call and conversation information. Look closely at your business processes, discuss with employees what they need and want, and contrast that with your bottom line. By doing so, you'll quickly have an accurate picture of the right CRM software for you.

It's tempting to forgo this homework and simply pay for one of the big, all-inclusive CRM software packages just to have access to every feature you might need now or in the future. But that approach will almost certainly wind up costing you more in both time and money, while probably delivering less flexibility than you'd expect. That's because these large CRM software packages are often platforms rather than tools. This means that those myriad features they advertise are really the product of integrating with a host of third-party solution providers, not options you can simply turn on. Third-party integration means not only added licensing dollars but also new integration costs.

A better approach is to understand how your employees have to use the software as well as how they want to use it. Think about what tools your team is currently using and what processes they follow. Figure out how those tasks map to the CRM software you're evaluating. Consider what some of the most common tasks are. For example, if the users have to dig through menus and submenus every single time they want to log a call or email, then the tool will actually complicate their jobs instead of simplify them. Form a small group of users who understand these day-to-day issues to help you in your evaluation; frontline salespeople and managers as well as IT managers are a good start. You don't want to impose a tool that actually makes key tasks more difficult or complex just so you can pay a premium for features those same employees may never touch. More and more CRM tools are also combining the email and sales experience into a single smart inbox or centralized dashboard view to manage all or most daily communications and tasks, without leaving the CRM tool.

As with any piece of software, it's essential to take advantage of free trials when available. No matter how many reviews you read or demos you watch, you can't get a real sense of how the CRM software works until you use it yourself. Be sure to have colleagues from different departments try out the software, too, so you can understand how successful it is in different situations and business processes. This way, you can eliminate programs with too many or too few features as well as understand how much training will be necessary.

Most of these companies offer at least a 14-day trial (and we consider that fairly short as 30 days is better) and some, including Apptivo CRM, Insightly CRM, and Zoho CRM offer free plans, albeit with limited features or users. These can either serve as a full-time solution for small companies or as a long-term trial for larger companies. Apptivo CRM, Insightly CRM, and Zoho CRM also offer free trials as do Base CRM, PipeDrive CRM, and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.

Ease of Use and Support

CRM software must be intuitive or you'll never want to use it. Make a note of how many clicks it takes to conduct a basic task and how easy or difficult it is to find the features you need. Beyond being easy to use, CRM software should be able to manage user error. For example, if you try to conduct a task on the wrong screen or input the wrong data, then the best software will identify your error and suggest the right way to do it. On the other hand, poorly designed software will either let you make the error unchecked or will throw up an unhelpful error message.

One way to figure out if CRM software is really easy to use is by training others on how to use it. If you get stuck while training someone else, then that's worth noting. Think about the time it will take to get your team up to speed and whether or not it's worth that investment.

Finally, when you run into problems, whether it's a software bug or a problem using a feature, you'll need a responsive support team. Verify what type of support is included with your subscription and the hours of availability. If available, read through the support documentation, FAQs, and other self-service help (options include blog entries, public knowledge bases, and even online training videos). If there aren't any self-service options, then consider that you'll have to contact support whenever you get stuck. That said, you should contact support while you're trying out software and make a note of the response time. Ask a lot of questions; this will also help you familiarize yourself with the product. CRM software is complicated, but support shouldn't be.

And watch out for gaps in the support plan. Many of these solutions, especially the SaaS entries, have tiered, subscription-based pricing. That often means different levels of support depending on the subscription you choose. If your business process requires access to the CRM on weekends, for example, then make sure you've got access to support during those hours.

Email, Mobile, and Social Features

Don't get distracted by CRM capabilities you won't use. Make sure the software you ultimately select captures the information that's essential for your business, allows effective follow-up, and is easy enough to use that your team will work with it, not around it.

Remember that new technologies, while slick, aren't automatically pervasive. For example, social media is a game-changing technology for interacting with customers. But as much as social and collaboration applications such as Slack are catching on, that doesn't mean email is dead. Most customers still expect to interact with you via email, and an email can still capture much more data than a Facebook post or a tweet can. Understand how your company interacts with customers over email and make sure your CRM software acts as a complement to that relationship, not as a hindrance. CRM software should automatically capture data from email interactions, not force your employees to manually enter email data. Similarly, integrating your CRM software into your email platform means that entering the customer's name or ID in one platform automatically brings up data from the other.

Take the time to also properly evaluate the mobile app; this should be considered a separate app, not just as a mobile 'capability,' and you also shouldn't be asked to pay anything extra for it. Mobile devices are an entirely different breed from desktops or notebooks. Employees use them differently and software renders them differently, which means that business processes that involve them will behave differently. Make sure your CRM software of choice can support the mobile device platform your team uses and carefully evaluate what the app can do. Some apps offer a read-only view of your sales pipeline or contacts so that you can look up the relevant information while out and about. Those apps won't let you make updates until you get back to a computer. Others offer a seamless and responsive experience, letting you do everything you would do on a mobile device that you would on a computer (but usually presenting tools and features differently, which can be difficult for some users to get used to). Don't commit to CRM software until you've actually used the mobile app in a way you and your team would on a day-to-day basis.

Companies, including Sugar CRM and Zoho, cater to the mobile workforce, with full-featured, responsive apps, and mobile layouts. If you have a field sales team that leaves their laptops behind and instead works on their tablets and smartphones, then you need to give them the tools they need.

Marketing Automation

The ability to act as a lynchpin for a well-planned marketing automation strategy is one of the most valuable aspect of CRM software, and it's a shame that not all software packages offer it—though most are beginning to get there. Marketing automation is a popular term these days and it refers to the software's ability to remind sales and marketing representatives to follow up with customers at the right time. Automation reminds you—or, in some cases, actually handles the task for you—of needed activities such as following up 30 days after a sales purchase with a coupon or calling the sales prospect 14 days after the individual signed up for a trial of the software. It can also extend to other software, such as kicking off an email marketing promotion based on criteria that are reached during a phone call with the customer, even if that call was initiated with the CRM system.

This also extends to lead management, which is a core capability of all CRM platforms. Lead management tracks and manages prospective customers (often called leads or 'opportunities') across lead generation and acquisition and throughout the sales pipeline. Lead management can be executed in more of a hands-on manner through tracking progression in a sales pipeline dashboard or reports. Some CRM software providers use a greater degree of marketing automation to trigger actions and sales stages based on lead progression. Lead management is a part of all CRM platforms but how the provider handles it can make a big difference.

Some CRM platforms have email marketing built in while others can connect with a third-party service, such as Campaigner or MailChimp. Automation can also play a part in email marketing, where an action by a prospect, lead, or customer, triggers an email or email campaign. For example, if a user signs up for a webinar on your website, then that can trigger a series of emails about what to do next. Likewise, if a user cancels their account, then that action can trigger an off-boarding campaign that prompts them to save their data or it can trigger an incentive campaign offering discounts or other perks if they decide not to cancel after all. Automation can also mean changing the status of a customer or prospect based on an action on their part.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are also starting to show up in CRM software. Bpm'online uses automation and predictive technology to remind users to complete tasks and guide them what to do next. Salesforce launched its Einstein AI-based business intelligence (BI) platform, which can also provide automation across email management, lead and opportunity scoring, and forecasting. These technologies have a huge potential to save time and to help sales teams perform even better.

Third-Party Integrations

It's important, as we've noted, to determine which features are included with your subscription and which require a third-party add-on. However, it's also worth looking at the software you already use to see if it's compatible with the CRM software you're considering. Maybe you already have email marketing software that you love or you want to connect your cloud storage service, lead management tool, or customer service management platform. As we've mentioned, you'll definitely want to be able to connect your email account and perhaps your calendar, too.

Another excellent example of a value-add integration with CRM would be your product support or helpdesk platform. Next to your sales staff, your product support professionals probably have the most direct contact with your customers and the information they gather in the course of even a short conversation can be gold to a salesperson. Problems with one product line can mean upsell opportunities to another. Reconfiguration requests can indicate new business needs that can also generate upsell. Integration requests can let sales staff know with whom they're competing for key business processes. There's more but you get the idea. Establishing a two-way data exchange between the helpdesk and CRM systems can populate both platforms with valuable data.

Integration today takes two basic forms. The easiest is if the CRM system or the system to which you're trying to connect supports the other as a 'native' integration. That simply means that the company in question has a prebuilt integration module you can simply select, download, and implement as needed. You'll have the best luck with big-name targets here as many companies pre-build integrations for companies such as NetSuite or Salesforce, for example.

The other method is that, if both system support an open application programming interface (API), usually one based on Representational State Transfer (REST). With an API, you can have your in-house IT staff (provided they can do some coding) or an out-of-house contract programmer build a custom integration for you. That option certainly provides the most flexibility and customization but it can also add significant cost depending on the level of your coding talent.

Reporting and Analytics

Once you've been using CRM software to manage your leads and deals, you can see how successful you've been and where you're falling short. Look for CRM software with reporting features that can be customized so that you can see how employees are performing and which types of customers are responding. Look for a tool that lets you export reports if you need to present high-level data to company stakeholders.

Next, take that API or native integration and plug it into whatever business intelligence (BI) tool your organization likes best. That's because BI can turn that humdrum CSV or PDF file reporting data into live data visualizations and dashboards. These can keep you, your sales team, and anyone else with access to the CRM data completely current on sales statistics, demographic information, product popularity, and any number of other metrics. Additionally, only today's BI tools let you combine data from multiple sources—such as your CRM database on one side of the business and your warehouse and supply chain on the other—and ask complex queries that take multiple data sources into account to provide new insights that any one data source simply couldn't.

Crm App For Mac

Don't Forget About Security

Invest in security. There's no simple way to put it. When you're working with the sales pipeline and customer data, make sure security is top of mind—especially if you're using a SaaS-deployed CRM solution (which means not only the app but likely also a big chunk, if not all, of your customer data resides in the cloud). You should feel comfortable with the company's security requirements. It is a warning sign if your CRM software lets you select a password but doesn't generate an audit trail whenever someone makes a change, or if it doesn't let you define the access controls for each user. Customer data is an extremely valuable commodity especially now that customers are more reluctant to part with it. Securing it isn't just about maintaining privacy; it's about protecting profitable relationships that directly impact your bottom line.

Integration plays a role here but it's mostly about research. From an integration standpoint, you can make sure your chosen CRM software can integrate with as much of your current IT security software as possible, such as your identity management system, for example, so your employees can take advantage of single sign-on authentication. But even more important than that is doing your homework. That means digging deep into the vendor's service level agreement (SLA) and ascertaining exactly where your data resides, who is responsible for its safety, and what happens if there's a problem. Doing some Google surfing to see whether this vendor has been breached in the past and what their response was is another good indicator of just what you're getting your data into.

Putting Top CRMs to the Test

In this roundup, we tested some of the most popular CRM software packages on the market today. The packages include Apptivo CRM, Base CRM, Bpm'online CRM, Freshsales CRM, HubSpot CRM, Insightly CRM, Less Annoying CRM, Pipedrive CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM. We've worked hard to evaluate this CRM software with the aforementioned criteria in mind, so check out each of the reviews below to figure out which package is right for you. All have their strengths and weaknesses—some are geared more toward small to midsize businesses (SMBs) while others have broader email marketing capabilities. Some CRM systems are easier to use out of the box, with simple navigations and standard workflows, while others offer deeper and more complicated degrees of customization. Some are dirt cheap while others can be quite expensive when you start moving up tiers, scaling up your sales workforce, or adding premium functionality.

Our three favorites are Apptivo CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM, each of which earns an Editors' Choice designation. However, depending on your business needs, the size and scope of your sales team, and the means by which your organization aims to engage and grow its lead and customer base, any one of these CRM platforms might have the right combination of price and features to work for you. It all depends on your business needs, the size, and scope of your sales team, and how your organization aims to engage and grow its lead and customer base.

Best CRM Software Featured in This Roundup:

HubSpot CRM Review

MSRP: $0.00

Pros: Free version available. Very intuitive interface. Excellent email integration.

Cons: Gets costly when you start to add premium functionality. Relatively new, so some minor feature oversights, such as only allowing a single email address per contact record.

Bottom Line: HubSpot CRM is an excellent choice for smaller companies looking to get into CRM for the first time, especially since it's free. But while it's an easy step to take at first, be aware that it can get pricey if you flesh out its features as your organization grows.

Read Review

Zoho CRM Review

MSRP: $12.00

Pros: Free for up to 10 users. Stellar feature set. Gamification modules. Google integrations. Valuable reports. Powerful email marketing tools.

Cons: Workflow automation limited to Professional edition.

Bottom Line: An early player in the CRM space, Zoho CRM offers plenty of power, a decently intuitive interface, and a vast collection of advanced features and third-party integrations. All in all, an easy pick for Editors' Choice.

Read Review

Freshsales CRM Review

MSRP: $12.00

Pros: Offers a variety of native and third-party integrations. Great customization capabilities. Intuitive interface. Free version available.

Also, take the time to look at the work others have created with the product. Free photo editing tools. You need to closely research the product and get really clear on both the product's strengths and its weaknesses.

Cons: Fewer third-party integrations than the competition. Reports not available in the free plan.

Bottom Line: Freshsales CRM is an easy-to-use customer relationship management platform aimed at small to medium-sized businesses. A friendly price and a good feature set make this app well worth considering.

Read Review

Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional Review

MSRP: $75.00

Pros: Smooth workflow processes. Tons of advanced features. Highly customizable. Social collaboration. Robust third-party app marketplace. Free 30-day trial.

Cons: Steep learning curve. Expensive, especially when accessing more advanced lead generation and managerial features.

Bottom Line: Salesforce combines a formidable feature set with a matching learning curve, but the platform offers everything you could want as far as CRM capabilities for organizations of any size.

Read Review

Bpm'online CRM Review

MSRP: $25.00

Pros: Task automation. Personalized tools for event planning, ad campaigns. Predictive unified business process. Feature hiding capabilities. Automatic triggers for marketing campaigns, like programming emails.

Cons: Relatively short trial period. Initial experience can be daunting. Forms require some coding skills. Doesn't work directly with social networks as Zoho CRM does.

Bottom Line: Bpm'online CRM has long been focused on larger businesses and enterprises, but it works fairly well for midsized companies, too. This popularity is based on the product's evolution, which now includes excellent analytics and reporting as well as marketing automation features.

Read Review

Less Annoying CRM Review

MSRP: $10.00

Pros: Simple, uncluttered user interface. Low monthly price. Multiple active pipelines for each lead. Straightforward lead management tools.

Cons: Basic reporting. No notifications of lead handoffs within the application.

Bottom Line: Less Annoying CRM might be the simplest of the simple CRMs we reviewed for small businesses. While you'll need to be careful that this entry-level solution still gives you the features you need, it's an excellent package for beginners at a reasonable price.

Read Review

Insightly CRM Review

MSRP: $29.00

Pros: Email tracking and templates. Granular sharing settings. Power BI integration greatly improves reporting capabilities. Expanded workflow management features in mobile apps. Creates web forms to harvest leads.

Cons: Lead assignment rules only available in Professional and Enterprise plans. No automatic email forwarding. Lead and contact info split into separate tabs. Pipelines not available for leads.

Bottom Line: Insightly CRM ticks all the boxes that most small businesses want when it comes to customer relationship and lead management. However, this platform adds some tools you don't see under a CRM hood every day, including data gathering and project management features.

Read Review

Pipedrive CRM Review

MSRP: $10.00

Pros: Simple, intuitive interface. Helpful guidance. Easy setup. Solid mobile apps. Customized web forms for collecting leads. Can create more than one pipeline.

Cons: Limited functionality for the price. No separation between lists of new leads and contacts.

Bottom Line: Pipedrive CRM is a solution that drops feature depth in favor of ease of use to attract small businesses. If you're satisfied with basic functionality and you want to implement CRM quickly, then this package might be for you.

Read Review

Apptivo CRM Review

MSRP: $10.00

Pros: Do-it-all, customizable solution. Affordable. 24-hour support. Great mobile apps. Granular security controls. Workflow and campaign management tools.

Cons: Integrations still custom rather than based on standard APIs.

Bottom Line: Apptivo does a great job of checking all your CRM boxes. A fair price, a friendly interface, and lots of customizable capability makes it an easy Editors' Choice pick, especially for smaller businesses looking to get into CRM quickly.

Read Review

Base CRM Review

MSRP: $45.00

Pros: Simple interface. Free 14-day trial. Free training webinars. Full-featured mobile apps. Innovative predictive analytics reporting.

Also they mostly arrive with a remote control these days, giving you direct media control, but you can always go the extra mile and get a wireless keyboard and/or mouse. Mac as nas. For HDMI Access to the NAS for Media or as a NAS PC = Generally you need a QNAP NAS for HDMI NAS access.

Cons: Customization ability is limited. Deeper automation, reporting, intelligent analytics, and permissions only available at higher tiers. Significant price increase.

Bottom Line: Base CRM does a solid job of delivering a simple to use CRM aimed at small business customers. It even manages to set itself apart through some advanced analytic capabilities and reporting.

Read Review

Does anyone have suggestions for the best small business CRM tool/software that works well with the Mac email client?

I want pretty simple functionality--load my contacts, track my email interactions, scheduling of emails to certain individuals (we know that the Mac email client doesn't allow scheduled emails which is incredibly lame, but that's another conversation) and some simple opportunity/lead tracking.

I'll also be using AWeber for email marketing.

I tried SalesForce, but it was a total beat down even trying to integrate my Mac contacts..

Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Cheers!

Small Business Software For Mac

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Best Small Business Crm Tools

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[colorofyourhair]

The Tedious Task of Glue and Fringe

Prompt:

Prompt Rating: K+

Note: As tumblr is the only site that will let me list an individual rating per chapter I’ll rate them as content demands. However the larger compilation on both FFN and AO3 are rated M.

Also posted here:

FFN

AO3

Erza fumbled around in her bag for her set of keys. Her fingers had brushed over the jagged edges twice already. She knew she was stalling. Jellal only smiled and waited. He was patient. Too patient. Why was he even here with her instead of anyone else? Perhaps a woman who didn't clunk around town in a junker of a car? Or a woman with a better kept yard or a bigger house or a kid who was supposed to be asleep but was probably lurking in the hallway while his babysitter's back was turned?

“Is everything okay?” he asked, his voice drowning out the buzz of her fading porch light.

“Uh –” Erza's hand closed around the set of keys and she finally dragged them from her bag. “Listen, you don't have to do this, you know? He's – he's a lot of work. I'm afraid I wasn't a very stern mother when he was younger. We were both young. Natsu is...” Erza trailed off. She didn't know where the line between fair warning and disparagement stood. Natsu was her son and she loved him but she wasn't blind to his wild outbursts. “I haven't brought home a guy since he was in diapers. I don't now how he'll react.”

“You don't think he'll be asleep this late?”

Erza's lips flattened into a line. “He's awake.”

“I can take it, Erza. I already love all the parts of you I've met.” His grin was easy and Erza flushed. She didn't know how to handle someone who gave so freely. Her arms were full but she wondered if she left his too empty.

“Right,” she breathed. Erza slid the key into the deadbolt and unlocked the door. The house was quiet – too quiet. She led Jellal through the dark front room back to the kitchen where a sixteen-ish girl sat with her open laptop and a backpack filled with books. “How was he?”

“Typical Natsu,” Juvia said brightly. “He was calmer after dinner, though. I put him in bed but you know how that goes.”

Erza laughed lightly and left her purse on the counter. “I do know exactly how that goes. I'll PayPal you for tonight when the invoice comes through.”

“Thanks, Erza.”

“No, thank you. You're the only sitter who hasn't run away screaming.”

“He's a scrappy kid but he's a sweetheart once you get to know him.” Juvia slid her laptop back into her backpack and stood. “I'm going away this weekend but that's it for the rest of this month.” She glanced over at Jellal and her cheeks turned pink. “I mean, if you needed more nights... or whatever.”

“I'll let you know,” Erza said with a smirk. Juvia waved them both off and Erza waited for the front door to shut before turning back to Jellal. “She's the best sitter I've ever had.”

“I take it you've had many?”

“Oh, yeah,” Erza sighed. She crossed the kitchen and slid her arms around his middle.

“I –” Jellal never got to finish his thought.

“What's this?” a small voice said from behind them. Erza closed her eyes briefly and sucked in a deep breath before releasing Jellal. She stepped around him and tugged on his hand so he'd follow.

“Natsu, this is Jellal.”

Natsu stood in the half-lit archway that led back into the front room and hallway. He was clad in his favorite pajamas printed all over with fire breathing dragons. His hair stuck out everywhich way – he'd obviously not bothered to comb it after his bath. The sight would've been cute if it weren't for the glare plastered on his face.

“Did you bring me the glue and newspaper?” Natsu demanded, not even acknowledging Jellal.

“I – what?” Erza stuttered.

“Glue, mom. And newspaper. For my project. You promised!”

Erza's stomach dropped from her body and squelched to the floor. His project. Of course. “I completely forgot,” Erza whispered. She'd crossed a line and forgot her son's craft supplies to... what? Go on a date? Jesus her priorities were fucked. She was officially That Mom.

“This is your fault!” Natsu said darkly, pointing at Jellal. To his credit, Jellal didn't speak. He simply squeezed Erza's hand and turned to her.

“I should go.” His eyes weren't as judgemental as they should've been, in Erza's opinion. She'd have deserved it. “I'll call you, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Erza whispered. She didn't follow him to the door and she didn't see him out. Instead, she knelt on the floor in front of Natsu to tidy the messy points of his hair. “I'm sorry about your piñata. We'll go together tomorrow and you can pick everything out yourself.”

Natsu's face fell. “But you're working all day tomorrow and at night,” he whispered. “The calendar says so. It'll just be me and grandma.”

“Then I'll go on my lunch and leave it here on the table for you, okay? I won't forget.”

“I'm sorry about your boyfriend,” he said even lower than a whisper. “I shouldn't have yelled.”

“It's okay. You were right. I forgot and it's entirely my fault. I apologize.” Erza's heart was in pieces. Natsu might have been a wild, impulsive little boy but he wasn't malicious. He simply acted on whatever emotion was loudest in his head at the time. Natsu could remember detailed maps of their neighborhood and town, he could perfectly recite the calendar she taped to the fridge every month, and he could remember every single ingredient in just about any given sauce she made in the kitchen – but he was bound to his emotions and impulses. Tieing his shoes or combing his hair or remembering mundane things like sharpening his pencils escaped him easily.

“I'm still sorry.” He suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her neck. Erza stood and brought him up with her.

“Let's get to bed, okay? Tomorrow will be another day. I promise I won't mess up again.”

Natsu yawned and his fingers tangled in her hair. “You don't mess up, mom. Not really.” His words were sweet but she knew they came from the biased heart of a child.

“Oh, honey,” Eileen said with a sigh. “This isn't an issue of faults. You forgot. It was a human thing to do.” She reached over and tucked a stray wisp of hair back into her daughter's bun. “You're doing your best.”

“I forgot my kid's stuff because I was on a date, mom,” Erza stated firmly. “That's heinous.”

“No, you forgot Natsu's stuff because you have a million little things on your plate and one of them was bound to fall off. You're only human, my love. Go easy on yourself.”

“I can't go easy.” Erza pulled a soda can from the refrigerator and popped it open. “He's still a kid and I disappointed him.”

“Listen to me.” Eileen took the soda can and set aside. She covered Erza's hands with her own. “We are a family of hard things. We do those hard things and we do them well.” Erza opened her mouth but Eileen shook her head. “Not perfect, Erza. Well. You were very young when Natsu was born and look at this life you've made. You work at the hospital and moonlight at an overnight clinic. There's nothing wrong with any of that except that heap of scrap metal in your driveway.” She smiled. “And even the car's been handled.”

“It'll be handled at the end of the month when I have the cash for a down payment.”

“Details, details,” Eileen whispered. “You've put yourself through college and work two jobs. Honestly, Erza, you had a date. So what?”

“Yeah,” Erza said under her breath. “Had. I doubt I'll hear from him again.” She knew she was being overly dramatic but it made her feel better.

“If he's worth your time, you will.” Eileen stepped back and looked over the grocery bags filled with newspapers, balloons, glue, and brightly colored tissue paper. “Is this for Natsu's project? Should I look into making a piñata before he comes home or does he know what he's doing?”

Erza laughed and gathered her bag and soda. “I'd recommend at least one YouTube tutorial before he gets home. Natsu loves to say he knows how to do a thing but he's really just winging it.”

“I'll figure it out.”

“If he gets too jumpy about it, just take him to the park. The piñata isn't actually due until next week. He's just really excited about it.”

“What time will you be home?” Eileen pushed the bags aside and took a seat at the table.

“Probably five-ish.”

“Erza –”

“Don't start, mom. It's just until I can get a new car. I'll cut back on the overnight shifts when things aren't so rocky.” Eileen smiled at Erza and shook her head.

“You're too much like me. Call your guy between shifts. At least promise me that.”

“I promise,” Erza muttered on her way out the door.

She didn't keep her promise – but she didn't have to. Jellal texted her at seven-thirty and she agreed to meet him at midnight on her meal break.

The clinic was quiet for the most part. Thursdays weren't the busiest nights compared to Fridays and Saturdays. That wasn't her problem, though. For the first time in the last several weeks, Erza had two days off in a row from both her jobs.

At twelve-oh-five, Erza slipped out the front door of the clinic and found Jellal shivering in his jacket at the far end of the parking lot.

“You're really doing the work, aren't you?” she asked with a laugh. Erza let him pull her against him. The euphoria he always brought with him pushed everything else out of her head.

“It's worth it.” He ducked his head and left a warm kiss on her lips. “I'm sorry about last night.”

“Oh, it's not your fault. It's mine.” She grinned up at him and pulled on the front of his jacket so she could absorb the heat. “For what it's worth, he's sorry for yelling.”

“He's a kid. He doesn't have to apologize.”

“Maybe –” Erza bit her lip and tried to dial back her impulse to make weekend plans with him but failed. “I don't work tomorrow or Saturday. Maybe we could have a take two? Natsu reacts better to planned things. He's got school tomorrow and Saturday afternoon might very well be a mess of papier-mâché –”

“I didn't know you were into crafting,” he said with a smile and another kiss on the apple of her cheek.

“I'm not. Natsu wanted to make a piñata for his heritage project.” Erza flushed in embarrassment. “We, uh, don't have a serviceable relationship with his dad's family so I'm relying on the internet to help us out with it.”

“Piñatas are easy. I've made plenty. It's just messy and tedious.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. My grandmother used to make us the big ones for our birthdays every year. If Natsu wants help I think I can swing a smaller one for his project.”

“Would you really?” Erza breathed.

“Of course! I mean, if he wants. I don't want to impose.”

“I'll bring it up but I'm pretty sure he'll explode all over the kitchen. He's super excited about it.”

“I'd be happy to help, even if my motivation is a little selfish.”

“Selfish?” Jellal's hands slid over her shoulders and his palms cupped her cheeks.

“I can't continue see you or get closer to you without making peace with Natsu. He's a part of you and your life. I don't want the spare bits of you that are cut off from everything else. I've had that for the last four months and I'm here for the rest. I don't care if it's messy or hard.”

“That's – that's a lot, Jellal,” Erza whispered. Her heart raced but she needed to be sure he understood. “This is where things get complicated. This is where it's not so easy for me to just let you go if things don't work out. It won't be just me getting hurt anymore.”

“Then maybe we should concentrate on not having to let go.”

“You're crazy, you know that?”

“So I've been told.” He kissed her in the yellow light of the parking lot and Erza didn't notice the flecks of snow in her hair until they melted in the warmer air of the clinic.

Scraps of newspaper littered the kitchen. Natsu stood on his chair and loomed over Jellal's shoulder as he demonstrated how to cut fringe into rolls of the thin tissue paper. The balloons and cones had been covered already by Natsu and Eileen, and all that still needed to be done was the decoration. Erza watched her normally hyperactive son slowly and carefully apply the fringe layer after layer.

When the piñata was finished Jellal hung it from a coat hanger in the doorway.

“I wouldn't touch it until the day you take it to school.”

“Do you think the glue will be dry by Wednesday?”

“For sure,” Jellal said with a smile. “It's just best to leave it alone until then. The paper fringe is delicate.”

“Wow,” Natsu whispered, gazing up at the yellow and orange piñata. “I bet nobody in my class will have something as awesome as this!”

“Why don't you go wash all that glue off your hands, okay?” Erza said, gathering the trash from the table into a bag. “I ordered dinner.”

“Awesome!” Natsu belted, taking off down the hallway. Erza exhaled heavily and tied off the bag. She could tell he'd been bottling up his excitement all day for the tedious tast of glueing fringe and would explode any minute.

“That went okay, right?” Jellal's voice came from just over her shoulder. He took the trash bag from her hand and set it aside.

“It did. I'm – thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being patient with him. For offering in the first place.” Erza's fingers closed in the front of his shirt. “For being patient with me.”

“I'm not in a rush, Erza,” he said quietly. “Just don't shut me out when things get hard. I can do the hard stuff.”

Erza's heart skipped a beat and she stared up at him. Her mother's words tangled with his in her mind.

'We are a family of hard things. We do those hard things and we do them well.'

“Erza?”

She blinked and shook her head. “Sorry,” she whispered. Finally she smiled. “I can do the hard stuff too. It's nice to think I might not have to do it alone anymore.”

When he kissed her it didn't last nearly as long as she wished. Natsu came tearing back down the hallway just as the doorbell announced dinner had arrived.

[waqasblog2]

GDPR - Let's all calm down a bit, shall we? - SEO, Content Marketing & Website Design

GDPR is getting to be like Y2K preparations.

It seems everyone is talking about it as if there will be Armageddon on the 25th May unless we all run around burning files and throwing hard drives off cliffs just in case the rozzers find someone's email address on them.

I was at a gin festival recently (great by the way, I'll tell you about it sometime), and people were talking about it at the bar.

Give it a break already!!!

Something more important than GDPR is happening on the 25th May, I'll be bothered about that.

What this article isn't

There is approximately one cubic gazillion of articles claiming to be the ultimate guide to GDPR, and I bet you've read a few and still don't understand them.

So, I'm not going to get into that here. This isn't a comprehensive GDPR marketing guide.

Instead, I thought what might be useful is a “cut through the crap” set of very short, succinct points that will give you some sort of idea about the whole process and what, if anything, you need to do about it.

Mostly, though, I'm hoping to stop a few people destroying their email lists because some guy in a suit said they should.

If I'm not compliant by the 25th May, will I be fined £17 million and sent to rot in jail?

NO!

Let me explain why:

There are consultants currently travelling the country telling everyone, usually on their first PowerPoint slide, that the fines that the ICO (the UK organisation that will implement GDPR) can punish you with are mahoosive; up to 4% of turnover or 17 million quid.

You can imagine that ACME window cleaning Ltd with two employees is positively quaking in its boots at this revelation, but it's nonsense.

In fact, the ICO themselves are getting a little hacked off with it.

I quote, from their own blog:

Myth #1:

The biggest threat to organisations from the GDPR is massive fines.

Fact:

This law is not about fines. It’s about putting the consumer and citizen first. We can’t lose sight of that.

Focusing on big fines makes for great headlines, but thinking that GDPR is about crippling financial punishment misses the point

GDPR gives the ICO more clout to punish people, yes, and it gives them the teeth to act when companies fail to follow the rules, but they're not going to be knocking on your door in the middle of the night threatening to take you to a cash point.

Last year they concluded 17,300 cases. 16 companies got fined. And none were fined the maximum available to the ICO.

The sort of companies that get fined are the ones that systematically or blatantly break the rules.

For example, ignoring people's requests to be removed from mailing lists and continue to email them on a huge scale.

The ICO wants to educate, so rather than throwing fines about willy-nilly, they'll work with the companies to ensure they're doing it right and help them stick to the rules.

Is it illegal to send marketing emails under GDPR?

Seriously, this is just nuts.

I've had more than one person say they're going to cancel their MailChimp account because they won't be able to email people anymore.

Let's make it clear:

But I need their consent, yeah?

Yep. Just like now. The important thing with GDPR is that they need to know exactly what they're signing up to.

You can't imply or assume consent anymore.

Make it clear what they're opting in to

When someone gives you any of their details such as email address, phone number etc., you need to make it really clear what it is they're opting in to and what you'll do with that information.

For example, if someone downloads an e-book from your website, you need to give them the option of also signing in to your mailing list. You can't just assume that because they've downloaded the book that they're also happy to receive your other emails.

To be fair, this has been a grey area for a while, but GDPR now makes it clear.

It's going to affect a lot of websites, for example, those that only let you read the rest of an article after you've signed up, but that's OK, they'll cope.

You probably can't just email them because they've bought from you

It's the same with online shopping.

You can send them transactional emails, that is, emails that are triggered by their purchase such as order confirmation, invoice and dispatch data, but you can't then start bombarding them with marketing emails unless they tick the box saying they're happy to have them.

(Note: This is actually covered by PECR, which is additional regulation, that suggests that you can contact your customers for legitimate reasons. A reason might be you want to offer them something. Just make sure they can opt out, you’ll be fine.)

Again, this is a grey area that's being tidied up, but many shops have been doing this for years, it's no biggie.

You can't have pre-ticked boxes or confusing consent

Some stores are a bit naughty, and right at the bottom of the order form there will be a tick-box with a sentence next to it saying “We will occasionally send you marketing emails, but if you'd rather not be pestered, un-tick this box.”

You can't do that anymore, which is a good thing.

This goes hand-in-hand with tick boxes that aren't especially clear, for example, ones that give multiple reasons or say things like

“By ticking this box, you do not allow us to remove your email address from our lists or maybe email you on a regular basis. If you do not wish us to not email you regarding things like this and such, then dance a merry jig while smoking a peace pipe.”

You must make it easy for people to unsubscribe

It needs to be really simple and completely fool-proof.

Ideally, a link on every single email that says “Unsubscribe” which takes them to a page that says “Sorry to see you go, you're now unsubscribed.”

Maybe give them a question to ask why, but that's it.

Close browser, job done.

Some people grind my gears by taking you to a site which you then have to log in to first (i.e. reset password because I forgot it) and then choose a complex set of tick boxes before being released from their vice-like grip.

One click dude, no dick moves.

How about getting consent for emails again, do I need to do that?

In most cases, no.

I've had a flurry of emails from companies saying “Due to GDPR, we need to get consent to keep sending you emails.”

The only time you'd need to do that is if you got the email through nefarious means in the first place.

For example, if I filled out a basic contact form on your site and then you started emailing me.

That's wrong, it's always been wrong, and now it's even wrongerer.

But if I signed up via your newsletter sign-up form, you do not need to ask me again.

Honestly, you don't.

If you got consent in the past, you have consent now.

Also, there's still a grey area about business to business. It seems you don't need consent anyway for this (there are exceptions, stick to the basics and you'll be OK.)

Also (2), do you use a proper mail client like MailChimp or ActiveCampaign or Aweber?

Well don't worry about it, there's an unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email. When people click this, they're unsubscribed, and they can only get back on the list if they specifically ask.

All cool.

Are there any scenarios when I might have to get consent again?

Other than that, you're probably OK. I'm saying “probably” because I don't know where you got your filthy list from, and I don't want you using this blog as an excuse. If you were bad with data in the past, clean it up.

Should I email everyone to get re-consent anyway? Just to make sure? I'm scared…

Oh please, grow some.

Yes, of course you can. Send out that email.

What's your current open rate? 20%?

And click through rate? 8%?

So, just working this out on the back of a fag packet, if I had a list of 800, I'd end up with 13 left on it when I've gone through this utterly pointless exercise.

Stop it.

So what should I do?

If you're a huge company with lots of employees, go get yourself a consultant, they'll help you in exchange for some dollar.

There are different rules for large businesses, and you might have some work to do, so go do it.

If you're a small business, you need to follow some basic steps:

The first is to check out the ICO website which explains everything in detail, it's all you need.

If someone tells you something is “what you need to do”, then check with the ICO, they're being incredibly pragmatic about it all.

Secondly, don't lose sleep over it.

Thirdly, check your mailing list. This next bit is a bit in-depth, so I've decided to give it a new section.

How to make sure I'm not breaking the law and will, therefore, go to jail or have my house repossessed

If you systematically scraped email addresses from the web, typed them in yourself from the Yellow pages or in some way got your mailing list using nefarious means, then delete them all.

However, if you fall into one of these categories, read on:

Still with me?

Audit your mailing lists

Where they from? Can you split out all the ones that opted in via your sign-up form? Good, do that, tag them or add them to another list.

This is the list of people who absolutely, positively wanted to sign up. Good, we're done. Leave them alone.

Got some others you're not sure about?

OK, put those in another list or tag them “we're not sure” or something, we'll work on these guys next.

Send out an email

The mistake everyone is making here is emailing everyone and saying “you need to sign up again” when they don't.

If they signed up before, that's fine. They gave consent and therefore that consent passes into the GDPR era.

So let's just tackle the ones we're not sure about, and rather than asking them to sign up or not hear from you ever again, let's do it another way. Let's give them an option of opting out.

Create an email something like this:

“Hi Geoff,

By now you've probably heard about GDPR and the new rules regarding email marketing and the correct way of getting consent.

Well, we're sure you were asked nicely if you wanted to receive our emails, but we can't be absolutely certain.

It might be that you downloaded something from us, or we met you at a networking event and you said it was fine, in which case, we're all good.

However, If you don't want to receive any more emails from us, then please click the button below to unsubscribe instantly from our list.

You won't need to do anything else, it's all automatic.

If you don't mind receiving our emails, then do nothing, but remember you can unsubscribe at any time.

Thanks for your time!

Keep this in mind

I'm not a GDPR consultant or a lawyer. This advice comes to you from someone who has read the documentation, but your situation might be unique/different.

However, there's no excuse for many in the industry to use scare tactics to get you to do something and propose knee-jerk reactions that might end up in your losing a significant part of your business.

As with everything, be sceptical of what you're told.

Investigate everything and then do what is right.

What if someone complains

Someone is bound to complain. There's been so much publicity about it, there will be people looking for companies to trip up so they can get the feds on them.

Don't panic.

If you're using a good email system (we recommend: ActiveCampaign) then all unsubscribes are handled automatically, you're safe, but if not, and someone requests to be removed from your lists – do it immediately.

As long as you're on the ball, delete people's data as soon as you're asked and be open about what you do with the data you keep, then you'll be OK.

Is this everything GDPR is about then?

Absolutely not.

GDPR is a huge deal for many companies and it covers vast swathes of regulation, that's for others to deal with.

I just wanted to clear up some misinformation about it that's doing the rounds at the moment and make sure that a bunch of companies that are doing everything right aren't forced to the wall by over-cautious consultants.

If you need more advice, find a good consultant.

There's one who reads this blog, he'll be in touch to tell me his contact details, as soon as he does, I'll pass them on!

This content was originally published here.

[markjsaterfiel66]

Enginursday: A Beginner's Guide to Sourcing from Alibaba

Alibaba is the Wild West of product sourcing - a freewheeling, international bazaar offering low-cost bulk parts and products that range from the mundane to the, well, bizarre. Here, the risks are high but the potential benefits manifold. You may seek your fortune reselling low-cost goods (or finding low-cost parts for your widget), but you may find yourself flim-flammed, hoodwinked and yes, even bamboozled. But oh, the rush when your diligence pays off!

It seems excited.

I will begin with an important disclaimer: at this stage in my procurement career (and in SparkFun’s history), sourcing from Alibaba is basically the last resort. SparkFun has worked hard over the years to develop a list of trusted vendors. Many of these companies have locally-based representatives, knowledgeable sales contacts and field application engineers we can meet with face-to-face to discuss all our latest needs and quirks. Others are vendors in China, Taiwan and other countries whom we discovered via Alibaba eons ago, and have since built long-standing relationships with.

If you already have a supplier with whom you have an established, trusting relationship, love and cherish them all the days of your life. Understand also that their capabilities may extend far beyond what’s reflected in their catalog or line card. If there’s something specific you need, ask your existing contacts. At the very least, they may be able to provide you with a referral. I also highly recommend ThomasNet as an alternative starting point for finding reliable, quality sources for components, hardware, equipment, you-name-it.

That said, onto the fun. If you’re starting from scratch as we once did, or you simply like to walk on the wild side, you may be ready to plunge into the wacky world of Alibaba. Let’s begin with the search bar.

Don't look at my search history.

This part is pretty straightforward. Here, you can search for parts by keyword or toggle the little arrow to search for particular suppliers. As with any search, you’ll want to find that sweet spot between specificity and generality. It’s also important to know what that thing you’re looking for is called! That seems obvious enough, but keep in mind that there are different synonyms out there for the same type of product (e.g. “coin cell” vs. “button cell”), and businesses in other countries might have different naming conventions than you’re used to.

You can also browse items by market (at left) if you have a vague idea of the type of things you’re looking for and just want to peruse the marketplace. There’s also a new image search feature (the camera icon at the right). As it turns out, you can even search for products based on the current status of your life:

Time to hit the gym!

Once you’ve honed in on a thing you might want to buy in quantity, you’ll see on the product page a handy little pricing scale, info about shipping charges and lead time.

How many horse masks will you require today?

Great, right? Well, ignore it. IGNORE IT ALL. It could be accurate, sure, or it could be that the supplier just put random information in there because honestly-who-really-knows. If you want to know how much the thing costs, ask.

But first, try to learn a little about the supplier by clicking on the supplier name at right and perusing their company page. Alibaba is far less Mos Eisley Cantina-ish than it once was. They have a variety of verifications and certifications to help you sort out the legit from the sketchy, although there’s always some risk regardless. I like to see a high customer satisfaction rate, “Gold Supplier” status (multiple years is always a plus) and a decent rate of response.

Lookin' good.

Once you’ve achieved that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, feel free to message away. At the bottom of the page you’ll see the box you can use to send a message to the supplier. I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep this first message as simple as possible. I’ve found that I’m far less likely to get a response if I include multiple questions, customization requests, lists of products, sample inquiries, etc. I know, it’s hard to imagine that somewhere a sales rep is perusing their inbox and smashing that delete button every time a message is more than three sentences long, but there it is. Here is the basic template of what I send:

Dear Mr/Ms [rep name], Hello, this is [name] with [company name]. Please quote me for [quantity] pcs of your [product name or part number]. Thanks and kind regards, [name] [email address]

That’s it! This is not to imply that Alibaba suppliers won’t send you samples, customize their product, give you quotes for multiple pricing tiers and multiple products, discuss terms, etc. This simple first email jus gets the conversation going, and you can feel free to move on to all those subjects and more once the wheel has begun turning. Alibaba has a messenger feature, but I always include my email in the signature of the first message to emphasize that I’m okay with them emailing me directly. Personally, I prefer to communicate this way, but to each their own. If you do include your email, you will eventually get spammed, so be ready. You can also make a “business card” on Alibaba, which includes your contact information, and you can choose whether to share it or not with each message you send.

Yes, there is such a thing as too much squid.

You may find you’re not satisfied with a quote or minimum order quantity (MOQ). $1,400 per ton of giant squid tentacles may be more than you are willing to pay, or perhaps you only require 10 tons of them instead of 25. Again, ask away. Alibaba reps often have room to haggle. If you have other quotes or retail pricing to show them for comparison, go for it. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Consider what you might be able to offer them to make it worth their while.

If an MOQ is higher than you’re willing to commit to, it doesn’t hurt to see if the supplier has some flexibility there, too. Maybe they can lower it if you commit to purchasing multiple different products (giant squid eyeballs?). You might also consider committing to multiple smaller orders spaced out over the course of a year, assuming you’re confident in your volume projections. If you have a slew of questions, I recommend putting them in a numbered list to avoid important details getting lost in a big block of text.

I always request at least one sample before agreeing to purchase an item in quantity. Usually, suppliers with whom you do not have an existing relationship will expect you to pay for the sample, and that’s quite understandable. Sometimes they’ll just request that you cover the shipping. I usually ask them to send an invoice with a PayPal ID/email, but you can also pay directly via Alibaba. It’s important when requesting a sample (as with a full order quantity) to confirm what it is you’ll be receiving before committing to it. Some product pages display multiple products, or have multiple versions of a single product available with varying specs. Requesting a datasheet, manual, or any other supporting documentation is crucial.

This may require some vetting.

Once you’ve received, evaluated and approved a sample, you may be ready to commit to a full order. I won’t dive too far down the rabbit hole of payment terms, but most Alibaba suppliers will expect money up front, often via bank wire transfer (“T/T”) or PayPal, at least for your first order. Be wary of Western Union, as it offers relatively little protection against scams.

Alibaba also offers its own Alibaba Secure Payment platform. I haven’t personally used it for more than small dollar (usually sample) transactions, but it does offer a path for disputing transactions. You will also want to work out your shipping method and terms with the supplier. That is yet another topic that could be a post unto itself.

No, we don't make scooters.

A final word of caution: be wary of copyright, trademark and patent infringement. Even companies that are generally open source still aren’t exactly thrilled with companies impersonating their brand. It’s one thing to build off an existing design, but it’s another thing entirely to copy it and slap another’s logo on there. Knockoffs tend to hide quality and reliability problems behind the mask of others’ hard work and diligence. And they leave the real companies’ support personnel scrambling to field questions about products that end up having nothing to do with them. So once again, don’t be a jerk.

Moreover, should you choose to be a jerk nonetheless (or inadvertently stumble into jerkhood), customs often stops shipments of knocked off products, and you as a reseller are potentially liable for the things you choose to put on the market. Some violations are harder to spot than others. Did you know you can trademark a vague color combination? Well, neither did we!

Which leads me to another thing: educate yourself on product compliance issues (RoHS, CE, FCC, Prop 65, etc.), export restrictions, etc., or consult with someone who can get you on track in that vein. There’s a whole prairie full of rabbit holes there.

Anyway, if you want to source on Alibaba, just remember the five Ds:

1) Don’t take anything for granted 2) Documentation, documentation, documentation 3) Don’t be a jerk 4) Do do do due diligence 5) Dkeep it simple

And here is my Comprehensive List of Things Not to Buy on Alibaba:

ICs (take our word for it)

Uranium (this happened)

Human hair (because yikes)

Endangered species

Stuff that will get you sued

Things you otherwise can’t legally resell

Bulk mayonnaise (I mean why)

Doll heads (self-explanatory)

This cannot be unseen.

Be careful out there, folks. Take my timeless wisdom into consideration, trust your instincts and you will (probably?) do just fine. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and I will emerge from my meditation cave to reply as soon as the Alibaba oracle bestows her answers upon me. Happy hunting!

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[efosa123]

VoiceRank360 | Don’t MISS 1 Billion Voice Searches Traffic! by 2019 the voice-recognition market will be a 601 million dollar industry according to a report by technovic also research company comScore critics voice search will outperform traditional tech searches by at least 50% by 2020 now mobile invoice assistants are the future of search only it's happening right now they're faster more convenient and far easier to use than text typing especially on a mobile device now these three factors alone should give you a strong indication of just how dramatic and widespread the use of voice search is and how important it should be to those that want to stay ahead of the opportunity curve just think about the evolution of search first yellow pages then Google now it's all about voice search what's the commonality well ease convenience and speed are you starting to see the trend here you had better believe more and more folks will be searching using their mobile voice activated or other smart devices as we march forward will you be one of the smart ones to pioneer and profit from this trend or will you sit by as everyone else capitalizes on this very ripe opportunity can you say caching and the best part people are using these devices right now they're searching and buying all sorts of things using the assistance of these smart devices today use is only becoming more widespread and customary every single day it's becoming more normal every single day check out these numbers 76 percent of people are using smart speakers for local search weekly think searches like Alexa what are some restaurants nearby or Google give me a list of dentists in my area these are the types of searches that are happening right now what types of businesses can benefit by being the very first ones listed in that magical position zero answer box every and any type of business just think about it restaurants coffee shops hotels motels bed-and-breakfast doctors lawyers plumbers contractors retail shops econ stores and much more possibilities are virtually endless but none of that matters if you're not the one reaping the benefits you can rank anything you want in the position zero search results and we want to help you get there I hope you see the potential and are excited to learn how to grab your piece of the pie with our three-step simple system you could Bank anywhere from five hundred fifteen hundred or more by helping all sorts of businesses optimize for voice search who needs this well local business owners ecommerce store owners affiliate marketers change stores restaurants service professionals and so much more everyone needs this and with our solution you could help them while lining your pockets with nice healthy and handsome paydays do this as a solo one-person business or grow out of your agency if you like when can you get started how about as soon as you're done watching this very presentation prop it as often as you want for as long as you want just follow the cloud-based software three simple step process to make money first scan and identify voice ranking factors our system does the heavy lifting second download a detailed PDF report with all the issues this is all done for you and third send out PDF reports along with the offer to fix it for them using our done-for-you emails and that's it it's simple don't overcomplicate this it's easy if you use our system and the best part this software it identifies the missing key factors for google voice ranking tells you exactly how to fix those problems to help you rank in position zero allows you to check unlimited clients and generate unlimited reports it removes your need to cold-call anyone ever become the hero business owners have been hoping for without pain or hassle no guesswork no wasting time trying to figure out what clients need no confusion on how to help them whether in a rural area small town or big city every small business needs customers and clients right this is an opportunity no one else is talking about jump on this opportunity and be among the first the capitalize on this lucrative opportunity that's ripe with possibilities and it could be all yours if you like search has evolved the people that make the most money are the ones who capitalize on change and that means you could be among the ones who profit the most and first will you snatch this opportunity before it's too late businesses need your help with this you can help them with this you can have a business and make all the money you like all you've got to do is click the Buy button to get started what will you do watch opportunity pass you by or will you seize this opportunity bull by the horns and click the Buy button today everything you need to succeed is included on the other side of the Buy button once payments complete you get instant access to a complete voice ranking SEO training voice ranking blueprint are ready to go funnel offering voice ranking services list of the top 100 local business niches that convert for fast profit the outsourcing cheat sheet and more surprise bonuses you'll find that as soon as you join no experience is necessary and the total value is more than four hundred and ninety seven dollars action takers that act fast get access to everything just for a fraction of its true value and of course there's a no-questions-asked 30-day money-back guarantee which means you have absolutely no risk and no excuses to not give this a try hit the Buy button to get immediate access to one of the easiest online money making systems you've ever come across by this time next week you should already have signed local clients and I'll be looking forward to a thank you email testimonial from you but hurry the price will increase but hey even if we charge that five hundred bucks it would still be worth it because you'd make back all of that in just one deal obviously if you don't want to pay that much just click the Buy button now while it's the lowest price it will ever be ready to get started are you ready to change your financial situation take action hit the Buy button now and I'll see you in

[frenchibi]

Tagged~

Ok, hold on to your hats people because this is going to be a long-ass post. I have been told my cuts don’t work on mobile (?? TUMBLR PLS) so if this doesn’t work I sincerely apologize in advance for a lot of scrolling :’) Alright so I was tagged... like 6 times I think? And I’m just going to answer them all in here xD

Also I’m gonna tag a bunch of people and you can just... decide which ones you want to do, do several, do all of them, do none at all - whatever you prefer xD @cheatos @chxngsey @fairylights101writes @cheetahleopard @snowflakers @notinvidia @anyadisee @tallihoo @lalikaa @seijouho @astersandstuffs @phea-chan @owlkaashi-keiji @heirxx @thehibiscusthief @screamingnitrogenchallenge @fandang1

...alright, let the oversharing begin :’)

1. Tagged by @grand-king-toru (thank you, and you’re tagged in all the other ones too, obviously!!) and @queeniwaizumi (your tag was a little different but basically all your questions were in this one too so I didn’t do it separately FORGIVE ME TAT - and ofc you’re tagged too!!)

Favourite place: My apartment, or on top of a mountain, or in my car, or at my mom’s house, or in a Café in the center of my city where I can sketch people Relationship status: Single Favourite colour: Phtalo blue and magenta Pets: I have allergies :’) Last song I listened to: We Know The Way from Moana Favourite tv show: If we’re talking anime, it’s Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (by a MILE). As for non-anime shows, I’m currently enjoying A Series of Unfortunate Events very much (those books were my childhood & I’m so pumped for this series you have no idea) First Fandom: Harry Potter probably, first anime fandom was Inuyasha Hobbies: writing, drawing, singing, skiing, driving my siblings places (being the oldest is GreatTM), currently trying to learn to play the guitar Books I’m currently reading: Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (and 50 others I started in Better Days™ when I had more time for reading) Favourite book: Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness, Harry Potter by JKR, Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianne Wynne Jones, Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher by Walter Moers Worst thing you’ve ever eaten/tasted: Milk that had gone off. It’s gross. Living alone is hard, please don’t make the mistakes I did.

2. Tagged by @seidou-chan (thank you, you’re also obviously tagged in all the others as well~)

Name: call me French :D Nickname: French, Frenchie Gender: female Sign: Pisces Height: 155cm Sexual Orientation: Pansexual Hogwarts house: Gryffindor/Ravenclaw Favourite colour: (see above) xD Favourite animal: Dolphins, Turtles, Owls Time right now: 1:15pm Average hours of sleep: Ideally 8, currently 3, I probably need to see a doctor about this Cat or dog person: Allergies :’) (tbh I love both ok) Favourite fictional character from Harry Potter: Ginny Weasley (, Sirius Black, Molly Weasley, Hermione Granger, Bellatrix Lestrange) Number of blankets you sleep with: One Favourite singer or band: currently Of Monsters and Men Dream trip: Cities! I love sightseeing :D Also Skiing, always skiing. Dream job: Musical singer/actress When was this blog created: 20..13? Started out as a Supernatural blog xD When did your blog reach its peak: Still climbing hopefully What made you decide to make a tumblr: blame @notinvidia

3. Tagged by @marleeb (ty friend, we haven’t talked much yet so sorry for the spam of information here xD Feel free to do whichever of these tags interests you :D)

5 things you’ll find in my bag: Notebooks (at least 3) Assorted pens Allergy medication My wallet Haikyuu keychains :D

(see also this post)

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom: An enormous bookshelf (ca 1,5k books, 850 mangas) Assorted recording devices & equipment A large easel and all sorts of art supplies (acrylics, aquarelles, watercolors, pastels, colored pencils, crayons, markers, modeling paste, ink, soapstone) The door to my kitchen xD My workspace w/ computers and legal dictionaries ^^

5 things I’ve always wanted to do in life: Publish a novel Raise children Own a house with a private library and a large conservatory full of plants Perform on a large stage (did that, was amazing, love to do it again) Become a translator (lol I had no idea what i was signing up for)

5 things that make me happy: Singing (is the ultimate joy of my life) and performing w/ my choir Getting feedback for my writing (makes me ecstatic ngl) and exchanging ideas with people My brilliant, lovely, multi-facetted family My warm, patient and understanding friends Being able to create, and share my ideas to people who care about them :D 5 things I’m currently into: Moana (it has consumed my life and my life is infinitely better for it) Haikyuu (and the wonderful people I’ve met through it) My original stories (which I cannot wait to work on more) A Series of Unfortunate Events (the netflix series is so great and it really lives up to the books in my opinion??) Wasting time on tumblr and ignoring the BA-thesis that I need to be writing (and my work because why be responsible)

5 things on my to-do list: *cringes* my thesis My invoices & VAT returns Get someone to help me change a lightbulb (this is not a joke, I’m short) Finish writing two letters to friends that I’m working on :D (though this one I’m looking forward to) Finish writing the 60+ fics I’ve started and work on my original projects too :’)

(what a boring to-do list is2g)

5 things people may not know about me: I OVERSHARE ALL THE TIME (you knew that) I’m a legal translator (German/English) and I work freelance I am allergic to EVERYTHING I…really love…girls… I speak 4 languages (and a fifth one barely) :D

4. Tagged by @ghost--fox (this was a while back and I’m sorry for being so slow ;-; THANK YOU FOR TAGGING ME!!! I did your other tag too, below this one :D - obviously you’re tagged in any of the above if you feel like it xD)

Rules: Put your music on “Shuffle” List the first 10 songs Tag 10 people

1. Avicii – Hey Brother 2. Nothing’s Carved In Stone – Spirit Inspiration (Zetsuen no Tempest Opening) 3. Suzanne Vega – The Queen and the Soldier (I’m gonna base an AU on this just you wait) 4. The Cab - Endlessly 5. Blue Stahli – Anti You 6. Ramin Karimloo – Show Me Light (Have I yelled about how much I love him? I love him!!) 7. All Time Low – Cinderblock Garden 8. Genesis – Follow You Follow Me (I have no regrets, love me some 80s Phil Collins) 9. Ayumi Hamazaki – Dearest (Inuyasha Ending) 10. Nightmare – Sekai Wo (Death Note Opening)

5. Tagged again by @ghost--fox :D THANK YOU!!

A - Age: 21 soon xD B - Biggest fear: not making a difference C - Current time: 2:08pm (this took long omg) D - Drink you last had: I actually bought a fresh coconut and drank it :0 (my allergies are like “uhm girl that was a bad choice” but tbh it was worth it) E - Every day starts with: Removing my retainer and taking my allergy meds F - Favorite song: Empire by Of Monsters and Men and Invincible by Hedley G - Ghosts, are they real: Idk fam H - Hometown: Munich I - In love with: being inspired & motivated?? it’s the BEST?? J - Jealous of: healthy people K - Killed someone: couldn’t even if I wanted to L - Last time you cried: Out of frustration in December M - Middle name: Johanna (after my grandmother) N - Number of siblings: 4 (3 + an older step-sister I see twice a year) O - One wish: Stop using religion as an excuse for hate crimes P - Person you last called/texted: My dad/my friend Nina respectively Q - Questions you’re always asked: Can you chill? / Can you drive me to [place]? / How’s it going with your thesis? - pls But also: Are you doing okay? / Do you need me to listen? / Sing with me? – YES THANK YOU R - Reasons to smile: Fanfiction and fanart exists. Hot chocolate, tea and fluffy blankets. Music, Art, Books, Stories. Stars & the sky. Brilliant people are making brilliant things every day. A small act of kindness from you to a stranger can make all the difference. S - Song last sang: The Lasset uns nicht zerteilen chorus from Bach’s Johannespassion in my singing lesson (in preparation for our next choir concert), and then assorted Hamilton songs on my drive home xD T - Time you woke up: 7am U - Underwear color: dark blue V- Vacation destination: Cities w/ lots of art & culture :D W - Worst habit: biting my fingernails & cuticles I HATE MYSELF X - X-rays you’ve had: lots for my teeth (wrecked a tooth and used to have braces also), one for my knee after a hiking accident Y - Your favorite food: lasagna (w/ meat or spinach honestly I like both a lot) Z - Zodiac sign: Pisces

...and lastly, 6. Tagged by  @missellaineous (this is also super old I apologize but I liked your questions so :D - feel free to do any of the other tags if you want xD)

1. What can’t you sleep without? My phone. Literally I use it as an alarm clock xD 2. What are your favorite kind of socks? :0 I like big fluffy warm ones – and also I like skiing socks because they fit really tightly and they’re also super warm xD 3. What’s your favorite snack/meal/drink? Atm I am very weak for cookies (I have… phases. At one point I ate so many gummy bears that now I just cannot), my favorite food is lasagna and my favorite drink is water or tea (no milk, no sugar, I dislike sweet drinks except if it’s hot chocolate xD) 4. What’s your favorite kind of weather? …do you know the artist Yuumei? A lot of her pictures have spectacular skies that are like… the sun breaking through dark clouds after a storm? That. That’s my favorite weather. It’s so… motivational and  hopeful? Idk, but I love it. 5. What do you like to listen to/do to relax and feel better when you’re upset? I love the songs from musicals because they’re great to sing along to and singing always improves my mood :D I have endless love for Les Mis, Phantom of the Opera and Hamilton atm. Also what always helps me is, in my mom’s words, to “talk to someone who doesn’t hate you”. Because I tend to hate on myself a lot when I’m upset (for not being better, happier, healthier, enough) and it helps to talk to my friends, who objectively don’t think I’m as awful as I tend to think I am ^^ And they’re all really kind and understanding (and/or blunt when I need someone to tell me to snap out of it). 6. What’s your favorite store to shop at? HOO BOY ok I love bookstores (because duh, books) and lately I’ve also been loving Muji a lot? xD Also we have an art supply chain here in Germany that has GREAT STUFF and I always go overboard xD 7. What color do you wear the most? Black probably, but that’s because most of my pants/leggings are black. Other than that I own a lot of blue and also a lot of red, esp. dresses :D 8. What’s your favorite (video/board/social/party) game to play? That’s hard?? I don’t play a lot of video games but I absolutely adored Undertale. Funnily enough we play card & board games a lot when we meet with my old friends from school, but tbh I don’t have a favorite. I recently learned how to play Skat, which is really enjoyable? (Google tells me apparently that’s mainly a German thing, ok.) And, eh, I’m not a big fan of parties & party games ^^ 9. Any guilty pleasures? When I have time, I watch objectively bad or cliché anime and write commentary xD Also I spend way too much time playing The Sims if I’m totally honest... and scrolling through my dash. Damn. 10. If you could go anywhere (in real life or in fiction), where would it be? Or fiction??? HOGWARTS?!?! Teach me all the magic pls?! …ok but for real though I would love to visit some of my online friends :’)

Alright that’s it, thank you all again and sorry I’m slow and this is a huge post full of way too much information, I’m gonna let myself out now

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Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

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[mayarosa47]

Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

What Is A Placing?

Can I Divorce My Spouse If He Or She Is In Jail?

Is A Living Trust Necessary?

What To Do If Your Spouse Delays The Divorce Process?

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Solution For Custody And Child Support

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Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

What Is A Placing?

Can I Divorce My Spouse If He Or She Is In Jail?

Is A Living Trust Necessary?

What To Do If Your Spouse Delays The Divorce Process?

Real Estate Contract Law

Solution For Custody And Child Support

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Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/payment-terms-in-a-contract/

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Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

What Is A Placing?

Can I Divorce My Spouse If He Or She Is In Jail?

Is A Living Trust Necessary?

What To Do If Your Spouse Delays The Divorce Process?

Real Estate Contract Law

Solution For Custody And Child Support

{ "@context": "http://schema.org/", "@type": "Product", "name": "ascentlawfirm", "description": "Ascent <a href="https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/divorce-law/" >Law helps you in divorce, bankruptcy, probate, business or criminal cases in Utah, call 801-676-5506 for a free consultation today. We want to help you. ", "brand": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "ascentlawfirm" }, "aggregateRating": { "@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "4.9", "ratingCount": "118" }, "offers": { "@type": "Offer", "priceCurrency": "USD" } }

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Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

What Is A Placing?

Can I Divorce My Spouse If He Or She Is In Jail?

Is A Living Trust Necessary?

What To Do If Your Spouse Delays The Divorce Process?

Real Estate Contract Law

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Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/payment-terms-in-a-contract/

[michaeljames1221]

Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

What Is A Placing?

Can I Divorce My Spouse If He Or She Is In Jail?

Is A Living Trust Necessary?

What To Do If Your Spouse Delays The Divorce Process?

Real Estate Contract Law

Solution For Custody And Child Support

{ “@context”: “http://schema.org/&#8221;, “@type”: “Product”, “name”: “ascentlawfirm”, “description”: “Ascent Law helps you in divorce, bankruptcy, probate, business or criminal cases in Utah, call 801-676-5506 for a free consultation today. We want to help you. “, “brand”: { “@type”: “Thing”, “name”: “ascentlawfirm” }, “aggregateRating”: { “@type”: “AggregateRating”, “ratingValue”: “4.9”, “ratingCount”: “118” }, “offers”: { “@type”: “Offer”, “priceCurrency”: “USD” } }

from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/payment-terms-in-a-contract/

from Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah https://criminaldefenselawyerwestjordanutah.wordpress.com/2020/07/20/payment-terms-in-a-contract/

[gonnagoandrunwiththehorses]

Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/payment-terms-in-a-contract/

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Payment Terms In A Contract

Invoices are frequently the first and now and then the last archive that goes to the customer. Along these lines, we should establish a decent connection while sending invoices. Aside from the obligatory things, for example, customer name and thing subtleties, an invoice ought to contain different other significant components. With regards to beginning a business or dealing with a current business adequately, the most basic component is setting the invoice payment terms and conditions unmistakably. Unexpectedly, it is the least irritating part also. Even though all businesses set their payment terms and conditions, they are not drafted appropriately on invoices. Therefore, operational issues like-poor payments from customers, lawful ramifications, undesirable payment subsequent meet-ups, and numerous such issues may emerge. Numerous multiple times, much in the wake of drafting terms and conditions on deals invoices, a business visionary faces issues. It occurs because of the absence of appropriate or inadequate drafting of standard terms and conditions. Savvy business proprietors realize that setting up a contract is basic to expand the chances of getting paid in an auspicious way.

An all-around organized contract will cover a wide assortment of factors, set desires, and keep you ensured in case of a contradiction in your business connections. While a contract all by itself doesn’t ensure your invoices will be paid – rupture of contract happens – it can give you better legitimate securities if your customer doesn’t pay an invoice. Peruse on to discover increasingly about how a contract can secure you and keep your venture pushing ahead. As a dependable guideline, if something is essential to your business achievement, remember it as an arrangement for your contracts. These 8 things will give you a beginning stage while organizing your contract. Some Things Every Contract Should Include:

• The exact work to be conveyed • Significant cutoff times • Rules for modifications • Contact data • End conditions • Scholarly rights and discharge data • Payment terms • Transportation terms

Each business is one of a kind, so it is ideal to talk with a contract lawyer to secure the points of interest of your contract to ensure it will hold up in court in the direst outcome imaginable. If you offer computerized types of assistance, indicate the ideal length of an article or eBook, the number of site pages to be structured or the number of counterfeit ups for a logo. Or then again, like a scene creator, detail what number of plans you’ll convey and whether the customer finds a good pace. An inside architect may demonstrate which rooms will be updated and what number of furniture alternatives will be accommodated each. Make a cutoff time for the completed work item, yet additionally, incorporate achievements en route to keep the group on target. Try not to disregard including dates for expectations that the customer needs to give, for example, foundation records, tests and brand guides. At times, regardless of your earnest attempts, you simply don’t hit the blemish on certain work items.

In case you’re a specialist co-op who might be approached to make changes, this part of the contract will detail what number of updates would be remembered for the first extent of work and how you will deal with extra needs should they emerge. Affirm your favored technique for contact and ensure you have everyday contact on the customer side, in addition to data on other colleagues who will audit/supporting your work. Portray how much notification either party needs to give on the off chance that one of you chooses to suspend work. This secures both of you: It abstains from abandoning the customer and gives them plentiful time to discover another supplier on the off chance that you end working with them, and protections your pay so they don’t vanish without notice. List copyrights, subtleties on who possesses any protected innovation that is made, a repayment proviso, particulars on whether you may refer to finished work in your portfolio, just as other appropriate issues identified with lawful rights.

Answer the accompanying inquiries when drafting payment terms for your contracts: • How rapidly do you have to get paid to guarantee satisfactory income or working capital? • Does getting paid early legitimize offering an early compensation markdown? • What occurs on the off chance that you don’t get paid on schedule? • Will you charge intrigue? • Will you deduct the past due to parity from future requests? • Will you take the item back? Will you decline future shipment until payment is made? Payment terms can be very basic, or extremely unpredictable. Draft payment arrangements in a way that guarantees you will get paid on the standing that best secures your business, and is clear about what steps will be taken if you aren’t paid by those terms.

On the off chance that your administration incorporates coordination, which is the situation with a wide assortment of businesses from retailers to manufacturers, it’s essential to address these delivery terms in your contract: • When is the item going to be conveyed? • Who is liable for paying for delivery costs? • Who is liable for any harm that happens when the items are on travel? • When does the getting party take title to the products (for example when it leaves your distribution center, or when the gathering genuinely claims the products)? • Should the accepting party have a chance to review the merchandise for conformance upon receipt? To what extent should that review period be? Like payment terms, shipping terms can be very straightforward, or complex. Draft shipping terms with explicitness so the two gatherings are sure about jobs and duties. One size doesn’t fit all with regards to contracts. That is the reason you’ll need to set up your contract that works best for your business and addresses your customer’s issues.

The most regular contract builds are: • Retainer contracts • Hourly contracts • Task-based contracts We should look at what every one of these contracts is, their advantages, and what to keep an eye out for when utilizing each sort of contract.

Retainer Contract

A retainer is a single amount paid to a supplier that fundamentally serves to “lease” your administrations for a particular measure of time every month. Your customer will pay an expense forthright, state $2,000, and you’ll charge against that sum for your administrations, because of an hourly rate. This understanding functions admirably on the off chance that you consistently do an assortment of work for a customer that includes distinctive ranges of abilities – for instance, a lawyer may incorporate a week by week one-hour arranging call and audit of four contracts. This kind of understanding permits both the customer and the specialist organization to spending plan without shocks and without dedicating time every month to making an extent of work. Furthermore, it implies that you, as a specialist organization, realize that you should be accessible to that specific customer for a set time every month so you don’t unintentionally top off your schedule exactly when they need you. With a retainer understanding, you’ll need to line out what happens when your assigned time goes over or under the understanding. For instance, maybe your customer is in the midst of a get-away and avoids two calls and one discharge. Would it be a good idea for you to apply that add up to the following month or accomplish extra work to compensate for any shortfall? Ensure your contract incorporates clear desires for how to deal with this circumstance and an arrangement for when you will alarm the customer that you are approaching the restriction of the retainer.

Likewise, you’ll need to look for “scope creep,” which happens when undertakings extend. For instance, in some cases a customer may go to a manufacturer with an assortment of progress arranges once they see their home appearing, or conclude that they don’t care for the cupboards all things considered, which can prompt exorbitant postponements. Or on the other hand, a client may ask an inside architect to “simply investigate” another room while you’re introducing ideas for a kitchen or alter their perspective and solicitation tints of blue when they had determined shades of yellow. Decide how you’ll manage scope creep, for example, regardless of whether you’ll build the retainer or undertaking charge or bill hourly.

Hourly Contracts

This one is quite clear as crystal: You will charge for your administrations on an as-settled upon hourly rate. A few consultants decide to charge various administrations at various rates; for instance, customer gatherings are charged at not as much as composing work or procedure bills higher than looking into. Ensure your contract is explicit on the rate, including a top if necessary. And afterward make a point to follow your time cautiously, with the goal that you can give a total undertaking outline on the bill of how a lot of time was spent on what activities. Here are some time-following applications we love, with an extraordinary shout to Google Sheets, or QuickBooks to make time following consistent. Extension creep is wiped out in an hourly-based understanding because the customer is getting what they are paying for. Hourly work can rapidly raise without the customer acknowledging it, making an unexpected bill. Talk about settled upon limits for hourly work with your customer, and make a point to keep them tuned in as you approach the top. They at that point have the decision of organizing the work to remain under the roof or permitting you to keep on charging.

Undertaking Based Contracts

This kind of contract relates to a particular extent of work; for instance, constructing a deck or putting in new installations. Undertaking based contracts unmistakably depict the extent of work and permit you to stay concentrated on one settled upon objective. It likewise gives the ideal road to evaluating a customer, and the other way around, to ensure that your work styles and desires are perfect. If you’ve encountered customers not paying on time previously, you might be astounded to discover that creating the “Payments” area of your contract fantastically clear can help ensure you get paid in an opportune manner. Here is the thing that payment data you ought to remember for your contract:

Payment Methods

Your client may disclose to you how they ordinarily pay their accomplices, or you can inform them as to whether you incline. Recollect that the simpler you make it pay you, the snappier your customer is at risk to pay. That is the reason it’s imperative to acknowledge a wide assortment of payment strategies on your invoice, from Visas to checks. Another mainstream decision is a computerized bank move, known as Automated Clearing House (ACH), where cash moves straightforwardly from the client’s bank to yours.

Payment Terms

This tells your customer when the bill is expected. The most widely recognized payment term is “Net 30” which implies the client must compensation inside 30 days, however you can likewise indicate different terms. Continuously add a cutoff time to your invoice; customers get going, as well, and they need to know when they have to pay you.

Late Fees

Most customers expect to pay on schedule, however, on the off chance that a payment slips, that can cause ruin on your spending limit. That is the reason it’s savvy to tell clients in advance that you will apply a late charge if their record goes recent days (or whatever you choose). You can decide to include an extra charge or make it a level of the payment. Additionally, let them know whether you intend to stop work on the off chance that they don’t pay in an auspicious manner. Even though most contractors would prefer not to stop work, you may see it as a successful strategy for “reminding” customers that they have to pay.

Installments Invoicing

Try not to need to hold up until the finish of an undertaking to get paid? It’s astute to work in payment achievements up and down the way. QuickBooks’ invoicing arrangement permits you to invoice in portions, as determined in your contract with your customer or clients. That is useful especially for venture based work where you should charge a rate forthright and afterward in specific augmentations en route as you hit anticipated achievements. QuickBooks will consequently follow payments to show what you’ve gathered and what is as yet remarkable to facilitate your bookkeeping.

Not certain how to make a contract? Start by making a list of what is important to you and then call Ascent Law for help finalizing it.

Free Initial Consultation with Lawyer

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Legal problems come to everyone. Whether it’s your son who gets in a car wreck, your uncle who loses his job and needs to file for bankruptcy, your sister’s brother who’s getting divorced, or a grandparent that passes away without a will -all of us have legal issues and questions that arise. So when you have a law question, call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

What Is A Placing?

Can I Divorce My Spouse If He Or She Is In Jail?

Is A Living Trust Necessary?

What To Do If Your Spouse Delays The Divorce Process?

Real Estate Contract Law

Solution For Custody And Child Support

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Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/payment-terms-in-a-contract/