[Hidden-tech] Billable hours question

[Don Lesser]

Tough question. It is all over the map. Typically, we bill for hours spent.
We have a continual debate over whether we should bill for "learning how to
do something we should know how to do." Billing is an art and not a science.
It depends on

1. Whether we really should have known it (reboot after installation of
update kind of thing). That's clearly non-billable. 
2. If it is something that we learn in the course of doing a project that
makes the project go more smoothly but took some time to figure out, we
generally bill since we wouldn't have learned about it otherwise. Or, if the
budget is tight, we figure we'll use the trick in future projects and make
up for it then.
3. If we are on-site and a meeting is supposed to start at 9 and the client
keeps us waiting until 9:45, we bill starting at 9, even if we spent the
time doing billable work for another client. (This actually happened.) Same
is true if they want to discuss Brokeback Mountain or what they did last
weekend--keep it short and refocus on biz or accept that this comes under
not billable friendships. If a client won't focus on the biz at hand no
matter what you say, bill them.
4. Anything you do that you can legitimately say is working on the project
is billable. I tend not to consider mulling it over on the drive home
actually working on it, but then, I'm not a lawyer.

Next, factor in the client, the project, and the budget:

1. If the budget is tight, especially for a good client or a decent, but
poor one, we'll absorb some extra time, as in #2 above.
2. If the client is a long-term client, we're apt to throw in some free
time, based on a long-term relationship and the times we've made a lot of
money on one of their projects.
3. If the client is a pain-in-the-ass, we bill for everything. This
especially applies to cases where we have explained 19 times how to do
something and we get that 20th call. It's not so much that the person is a
jerk, but that they do not want to help themselves and want you to do it for
them. We get paid to be on-line help starting the second time around.

And finally:

Fire clients when it is necessary. Clients who think you are cheating them,
clients who demand do-overs for free, clients who don't listen to your
advice, clients who forget that you are doing what they told you to do (get
it in writing) are all clients who deserve to be fired. Sometimes it is more
expensive to hold on to one of these than to dump them and move on.


It sounds like you are in the gray zone: should you have known about the CSS
incompatibilities and dealt with them in advance? Did this come up because
you underestimated the time you needed to spend? Was it a legitimate
surprise to all concerned? Did you do other things that you would have
normally billed for, but didn't in this case? Did you spring it on them at
the end or involve them in the overages as they were happening and give them
a chance to veto costly fixes? 

Non-profits are hard. On one hand, they want real work that is legitimately
billable. On the other, they have no money and often you're dealing with
volunteers or people stretched way too thin. 

Hope this helps.

Don Lesser
Pioneer Training, Inc.
14 Bobala Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 536-1030
(413) 552-0472
www.ptraining.com
dlesser at ptraining.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Anne
Campbell
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 2:28 PM
To: Hidden Tech
Subject: [Hidden-tech] Billable hours question

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Hi all,

One of my clients has recently raised a question about what activities are
billable. I'm a Web designer, and I pride myself on my honesty in billing (I
don't dawdle or pad my hours). I'd love to have some feedback about what's
fair
to charge for.

When I'm working on an hourly basis rather than a flat per-project rate, I
bill
for time spent: discussing plans for the design (whether on the phone, in
person, or by e-mail); creating and revising the comp; creating the
graphics;
coding the HTML and CSS; debugging so the site looks good in all browsers;
uploading files; and all the project-related correspondence that happens
along
the way. 

I *don't* bill for time spent generating invoices or contracts, or
correspondence about same. If a client and I are friendly and spend ten
minutes
chatting about what we did over the weekend, of course I don't bill for
that.
If I make an obvious, careless mistake that's my fault, I usually don't bill
for the time it takes to fix it.

This particular client was concerned because on a recent project, there were
a
lot of CSS-related incompatibilities between browsers, which took time to
unravel. She thought the "time spent correcting things that really ought to
have been part of the original work, designing for a variety of browsers and
screens" was unreasonable. She also believes that if I "answer the odd
e-mail,"
that should not be a billable activity. 

I certainly don't want to cheat this client, or any client. If it were you,
what would you do in this situation?

BTW, my work is pro-rated by the quarter-hour. This client is a small
for-profit company but is paying the hourly rate I normally charge nonprofit
organizations. 

Thanks very much for any feedback!

-Anne


Anne Campbell, annebcampbell at yahoo.com
http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
http://www.annecampbelldoula.com/

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