Newsletter #7 - Changes - Coping with Customer's Alts

Coping with customer's alts

Coping with customer changes to your work is, unfortunately, part of the desktoppers lot in life.

Protecting Yourself

It is important to run the whole job neatly - that means using a folder to the keep all the paperwork together - and generally keep everything! Should there be questions later you may need that piece of paper with the customer's notes ordering the changes. Keep a job sheet running as you go along to note down everything you do - time spent, materials used and proofs sent. Funny how at the end of the job you can get a form of anaethesia as to pain you went through - and forget just how many rounds of changes there were.

It is also a good idea, when a major revamp is ordered, to copy the document to a new name on the machine, that way if they then change their mind and really do like the first version better (or some part of it) you don't have to labouriously re-create it. (Yes, that has happened to most of us and it is the most likely source of stroke, heart attack or other stress related major illnesses in desktop publishers.)

With big jobs, including lots of separate items, like business cards, letterheads etc - it can be easier to run a job file / job sheet for each item. They can then be billed as they are finished and the file doesn't end up three feet thick, impossible to staple for filing, and even worse for figuring out how much you are owed. Multiple small invoices seem to get paid more quickly than one big one too!

Making it Easier

The worst is when you get a fax back of the latest proof and it's hardly recognisable under all the scribble. Before you get too overwhelmed, spare a thought for the humble highlighter.

First, take a photcopy if it is a fax, because highlighters can go through some thermal papers like bleach. Then start working, and each time you fix something highlight through the note on the proof. That way you'll have no doubt as to which scribbles have been done and which still remain. Doesn't seem half as bad.

Charge It!

Most typesetters do, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You might include the first lot, but after that you have to cover your costs: time, materials and headache tablets.