Yes, the article is very interesting, and a real eye opener. I know that in house building contracts, it's not unusual with 33% up front, 33% half way and the remainder upon completion. No matter how you divide the payments, it's important to define at what stage the payments should be made.

>Nice article.
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>The last time I did any fixed price work was for a woman who I named here on the UT years back. I wrote the spec, emailed it to her, got the go ahead, and did the work. Then when I invoiced her, she started with all the complaints about the work and told me about all the parts I had left out. Of course all the work I did was according to the spec she signed, and I followed it to the letter. I regularly sent her snapshots of prototypes and updates. It took me threatening to sue her to get the payment.
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>Since then I have only hourly work. I do the task, bill the client, and invoice them. It's easy to mitigate the impact of the loss should someone decide to stop paying me.
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>In this case, I'm going to send the client a contract with the requirement of a 50% retainer.I have heard that clients see a retainer as a lack of trust, so I'm sort of shy about asking for it. But I like getting paid more thank I like being nice.
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>>>I have been doing contract work for over 10 years on an hourly basis. The client's generally pay quickly and it's worked out well for all.
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>>>Now I have a new client who wanted a fixed price bid. This is the first of at least 2 projects I'll be doing for them, probably more in the future. This first contract is rather small, and the next one is bigger.
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>>>The question is; should I ask for a retainer? If so, how much? If not, how do I ensure that the client won't renege and leave me with nothing to show for it?
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>>This article is interesting reading on this topic: Good Contracts or Good Friends