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Things to Know Before Hiring an Independent Contractor

  Sanjiv Gupta CPA  Published 
Things to Know Before Hiring an Independent Contractor

Hiring an independent contractor for jobs around the home or the office is the easiest thing to do when trying to complete non-essential business jobs such as remodeling. Depending on the type of contractor that you seek out and hire, you may get either good quality work or poor quality work. So what are some of the things that you need to put in mind before deciding on which contractor to hire? These things to look out for usually go a long way in helping you determine the suitability of a particular contractor and assure you of quality work once the job is done.


First of all, you should consider the work that is required and whether the contractor has the capacity to complete it. Most contractors will overstate their capability to handle a particular job. As such, it is up to you to perform a due diligence analysis and set a threshold that will assure you of the capacity of the contractor. Ni addition, some contractors may be blacklisted by professional associations due to poor business practices. It is therefore important to ask for references before a contractor can begin handling a particular task.


The amount of money that you are willing to pay should also be taken into account. All things constant, money is the bottom line of all the transactions that take place between contractors and yourself. Depending on the amount of money that you are willing to spend, you should find a contractor who is willing to do the kind of job that you want at the price that you are willing to pay. You should also come up with a way to determine the quality of the job and the payment model, especially for the jobs that take a long time.


Copyrights are the ownership rights that an individual takes upon completion of a job. It is important that you and the contractor discuss the copyrights and the extent to which either of you is going own that piece of work. In most cases, the contractor owns the resultant piece of work until such a time that the final payment is made. This should be taken into the same consideration as the implication with regard to taxes that are likely to come from having such a transaction. Taxation issues account for a very large portion of the business costs that different businesses meet over time.


You should account for the fact that contractors can quit at any time they wish to. This means that there is a very high likelihood that the job will not be completed on time. Most of the time, if you are paying the contractor per day, then it is most likely that they will extend the duration during which the work is to be done in order to earn a few more dollars. Such issues with contractors should be taken into account before the contract has been signed, and execution has begun.