The distinguishing feature of a retainer is “paid in advance” professional services, as is commonly used by many service providers, agencies, consultants, freelancers, and legal firms.

Money is transferred to CP’s bank account and is tracked on a “Retainer” as a separate ledger or balance.

Retainers cover any work outside the scope of agreed upon fixed-price agreements and fixed-price projects. Typically, this covers reactive work, changes, software programming, special projects, documentation, project management, general IT consulting, new users/computers, system remediation and stabilization work, and so forth.

Normal business-hour rates are discounted for retainer commitments, as indicated in the approved quote. Rates may vary depending on whether the work is Windows, Linux, or Software Development. Business hours are 8:30am - 5:00pm on regular operating days in the province of British Columbia in Canada (“Canadian Business Hours”).

Scheduled After-hours is for work scheduled in advance for outside of regular business hours on Monday through Saturday but excluding statutory holidays and Sundays. The regular rate is 1.5X the base rate with a minimum of 30 minutes.

Emergency rate is for work outside regular business hours, on weekends, on statutory holidays, and/or not scheduled in advance. The rate is 2.0X the base rate with a minimum of 1 hour.

For work not specifically requested to be performed outside of Canadian Business Hours is billed at the Normal Rate. For instance, if CP is busy and decides to do something in the evening, it would be only billed at 1X the regular rate.

Two types of prepaid retainers are available, depending on the client’s business needs.

Predictable monthly budget: Set number of hours that invoiced to you every month. Unused balance rolls forward to the next month. Special projects that don’t fit nicely into a routine “operational” budget are approved and billed separately.

No predictable monthly usage: If it’s not feasible to setup a monthly retainer, you can purchase a block of time (i.e.: 10, 25, 50, 100 hours) based on projected usage for the next 30-60 days. When it is getting low, we will ask for a top-up.

When a retainer is low, by default CP will reach out to the client to get approval for a top-up. If a standing approval is in place, we will invoice a top-up without requesting/receiving approval.

When a retainer hits $0, by default our technicians will suspend all work. Of course, ‘reasonableness’ applies - if the monthly allocation will kick in soon, then we will continue work.

Retainers are managed to ensure there is sufficient balance available to cover the next 30-60 days of work.

For monthly retainers, any unused retainer balance simply rolls forward and does not expire at the end of the month. Our policy is not to refund retainer balances unless they have not been used for at least 6 months, and the account is otherwise in good standing.

Exceptions to this Retainer Policy document will be indicated in writing, either within the master approval or separately.

The following reports are emailed periodically:

Invoices for recurring monthly retainer amount: Emailed 1-2 weeks before the 1st of the month, dated and due on the 1st.

Invoice for retainer top-ups: sent and dated as required, due on receipt.

Work Summary for work performed against the retainer: These are dated for the last day of the month and sent about 5 business days later. These appear as an Invoice but have a $0 balance (nothing to pay) as they have been applied to the retainer balance. Work Summaries include detailed time entries for all work performed.

Retainer Reconciliation Reports: these are sent monthly, about 5 business days after the start of the month. They show a summarized account of the ins & outs on the retainer, referencing the Work Summary (also called the $0 invoices).

For questions about ANY of these reports, please respond to the original emails to ensure they are routed to the best available person at CP. Emailing your project manager, account manager, or sales representative will generally slow down the process.