[Hidden-tech] Billable hours question

[Anne Campbell]

Hi everyone,

I so much appreciate all your feedback about my billing issue. When I was at
Hampshire College, a lot of fourth-year students wore a button that said
"Painful Learning Experience in Progress," and I think that's what's going on
right now!

It's really good to hear that I'm not being unreasonable in billing for e-mail
and phone correspondence. 

One thing I'd like to clarify is that when I was working on this project, I
wasn't learning brand-new skills at the client's expense. I have a pretty good
grasp of CSS already, but even CSS experts have to do a lot of troubleshooting
in different browsers. It's just part of the job, the way that editing is
necessary for published books, no matter how good the author is.

I wanted to quote something that Jeanne Yocum wrote:
> This is what comes from being a nice person; some people will use it against
> you and try to take advantage. Don't let them. Instead of lowering your
> rate, find a way to cut the work so that what you do fits their budget.  In
> other words, if someone says "I can't afford this budget," ask them what
> part of the work they'd prefer to do themselves. 

This is an excellent strategy! It seems that every time I try to give someone a
break, I end up feeling like they've taken advantage. I'm definitely going to
use this idea in future.

Jeanne also wrote:
> I would argue that charging by 1/4 hour segments is a bit much, although I
> know there are fields where this is the norm.  In my field, public
> relations, everyone I know breaks the hour into six minute segments and
> charges time that way.  So, for instance, if I'm on the phone with a client
> for 5 minutes, I charge .1 hour ; whereas you would be charging .25 hour
> using your method. 

As I understand it, in Web design, some people charge by the quarter-hour, some
by half-hours, and some only by hours. When I first started doing contract
work, my client (also a big corporation) requested that I go by the
quarter-hour after I sent them a timesheet full of increments like "3.36
hours." I've gone with that standard ever since. 

But if I'm on the phone with someone for five minutes, and then later that day
I send e-mail for seven minutes, I add those up and bill for a quarter-hour -
basically, I add up all the minutes in a given day and round up to the nearest
15 minutes. Often I round down if it's only a couple of minutes over.

The invoice is now a week past due, and I'm going to need to be assertive about
getting it paid. I was able to use all of your feedback when I wrote to the
client, though, and that was a huge help. Thank you for the reality check!

-Anne


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

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