[Hidden-tech] Billable hours question

[Fred]

Sounds like a classic case of you give a foot, they take a mile.

Part of your job is to handle the incompatibilities, and if it took a little
longer due to the nature of the project, than I wouldn't see why it would be
cheating.  Part of what we do is solve problems.  It's not your fault that
all browsers are different, right?

It's easy for me to say "be assertive" as to your cost.  If you got the job
done, then you fulfilled your promises.  Unless your work took some
outrageous amount of time because you had to learn something, for example,
then this should not be disputable.

They could always have been charged the full rate.  Show them the savings
they have already received at reduced rate.  A little gentle assertiveness
will earn you the respect.  If for some reason they do not agree, is that
really a person you want to do business with?

Good luck!

Fred

-----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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