Terms
of Service
MaKro Consulting (MaKro) is in the business
of creating custom Microsoft Excel program/solutions for situations where there
is not a commercially available product that does EXACTLY the desired operation
efficiently, economically, and in a user friendly manner. Thus, if you can
find a commercial program already written to do what you want, you (the
customer) should consider using that application first.
BILLING PRACTICE
MaKro Consulting bids on jobs based on the initial requirements and the
estimated number of hours required to do a job (multiplied by the current hourly
rate). The time estimate given before the job begins is usually close to
the actual hours required, but it is also usually off a little. If the
actual hours slightly exceed the estimated hours, then MaKro will ask for full
payment for all hours worked.
One other hand, if the actual hours required
are less than the estimated hours, you will only be charged for the
actual number of hours required to do the job. Since MaKro
normally attempts to estimate time requirements on the high side, this
frequently results in you paying less than expected for your application☺.
If you want a fixed maximum price for a job, please ask.
If the job has major changes after the start,
(lots of changes by you, the customer) the time required could obviously change.
MaKro will charge for all hours worked in this case. If you want to know
the total hours worked on a project to date , please ask. On smaller jobs,
billing is usually done after the customer has had a reasonable amount of
time for testing and to verify satisfaction. Larger jobs (>40 hours) will
usually be billed in increments as the job progresses.
TESTING
Since the custom applications that we create are for use by a small group
of people, it is not reasonable to do as much testing as is done on a commercial
software program (used by thousands of people). To keep customer costs
down, MaKro generally does limited testing to make sure that everything appears
to be working properly in the application. Then, the program is sent to
the customer for additional testing and to see if you can find any problems.
Thus, the customer is responsible for the vast majority of the product testing.
After testing, MaKro will attempt to fix any problems that can be re-created.
These fixes usually happen very quickly and prior to final billing. Some
issues may take years to find. MaKro consulting will usually charge the
standard hourly rate for all changes done after billing for the program,
especially if a month or more has passed since job completion. Making
program changes weeks, months, or years later requires a re-learning process
that usually increases as this time increases.
LIABILITY
By hiring MaKro, you (the customer) and primary tester agree to be liable for
any and all costs that arise relating to the application not working as
expected. Maximum costs/liability for MaKro for any and all reasons
(including all attorney fees) will be equal to 25% of the total amount collected
for writing the application. Thus, if you hire MaKro to create an
application that might result in large financial liability, you (the customer)
are fully aware that you are totally responsible for any and all costs related
to the application's performance. You are also aware that an application
which works well under one version of Excel could behave very differently under
another versions of Windows and/or Excel.
A major advantage to using Excel as a
platform for a specialized application is that it makes it easy for you to adapt
the application over time to meet new needs without the need to always hire a
programmer to do the changes. Simple equation, chart, formatting, code,
etc. changes might be necessary over time to adapt. Unfortunately, these changes
can also cause application problems. You realize this and accepts all
risks and liability.
LICENSE
The application created by MaKro is licensed for use by the you and your related
company (s). It is not possible to grant you ownership of the application,
as it frequently contains VBA code that I have developed in the past and will
use again in the future. Thus, you can not sell the application to others.
However, you can sell them an unlimited license to use the product.
If MaKro is creating the application as a sub contractor, the primary contractor
is authorized to license the software to the end user.
If you DO NOT agree to the
terms above, please DO NOT hire MaKro Consulting for your project.
Thank you!
