Love your work but hate the “job” portion of it? You know, quoting scope of work, dealing with fees, and getting paid?  If so, check out Milton Gregory Grew’s great article about setting fees that can realistically account for your overhead and other indirect costs, “The Business of Architecture (Oxymoron?)”.

Of  the tips Greg discusses, step #2, “Put it in writing” is key,  as I’ve discussed earlier here.

Moreover, for fee issues, a written agreement is the gold standard.  In a written agreement you can even account for collection costs, higher interest charges, and “reasonable” attorney fees if you later (heaven forbid) have to sue a (former) client for payment of services.  Without a written agreement, you are stuck with statutory limits on what you can recover.

As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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Photo “Gold1oz” by Olegvolk via Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.