Timesheet submitted incorrectly, now in dispute.

[biondi]

Hi,

I'm an IT contractor and recently had a short term contract with a bank, I left the company last week and just submitted an invoice for the last month.

However, it seems I have incorrectly filled in a timesheet during my time there, which was subsequently approved by my line manager. I logged a day as 'Contractor Absence' instead of to a project. I have no idea why I would've done this, although I guess it could be a fault in the software I'm assuming I put my time to the wrong code by mistake!

So, now the bank are disputing the amount I'm invoicing for as they say I was not in the office on this day. Obviously I was, and working on projects - but because I submitted a timesheet which appears to contradict this, I'm wondering what I can do about it? They are being less than helpful unfortunately!

Just to add - I've contacted the bank but all they have done is told me I've already submitted the timesheet and sent me a screenprint of this. They haven't answered my question on how I should resolve the problem, I provided them with the correct project costcodes for that day also.
I've also sent the details to the agent but haven't heard anything back from them as yet.

Any help/direction/experience appreciated..

Matt

[northernladuk]

Would you contract with them again?

Is it likely they will want you back at some point?

What was your relationship like with the client when you left?

If all the answers to the above are positive you may be in danger of ruining this. You run a strong chance of ruining future opportunities if you push this in to an argument. I haven't been in this position and don't know how to resolve it appears to me you filled it in so your responsibility to check. The manager signed it so you are both in agreement and you got what you were due. Making retrospective changes is going to be a challenge. Whatever other posters tell you about how to fix this is the damage to your relationship going to be worse than one days cash?

[biondi]

Thanks for replying..

We left on very good terms and I have said to them it must have been a mistake on my side. You raise good points about the relationship side and it is certainly something to bear in mind, I will only probably pursue to a line then take the loss. It is quite annoying though as I know that they know I was on-site working on projects on that day, I'm sure that it can be sorted.

[xchaotic]

Put the £300 or whatever would be the net profit from that day as a learning experience for the future.
From my experience the formal timesheets only need to be correct in the amount of total time, do not put days on sundays, holidays etc so that your permie pm doesn't get in trouble and you'll be fine.
If you have a really good relationship you could even try keeping an informal log of what's really going on and sumbit official timesheets separately.
For example you might want to be working on a Bank Holiday if you have no plans - in such case you could charge it to a day in July when your holidays are.
But once the formal timesheets are approved I think you're out of luck - it's not their money, too much hassle etc