Help please

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I'm not sure what an IR35 risk is but I was asked to work per day at xx amount at their office. During those days I was asked to work on multiple clients and often multiple contracts for those clients.

Wait, you don't know what IR35 is?

Are you effectively saying that you came in and worked in their office on whatever they wanted you to? How was your relationship with the client any different to that of an employer/employee other than the fact you operated through your own Ltd company?

You better read the getting started links over there ----->

[TheFaQQer]

Edit: actually, I'm not sure you've even mentioned how your business is structured. Do you run a Ltd company or are you self-employed?

There is a post which says Ltd company.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

There is a post which says Ltd company.

Ah yes, missed it.

[codeseo]

I am still a little confused. You seem to use agency and employer interchangeably. Are you invoicing through a limited company? Umbrella? or are you actually working for the agent as a temp?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

OP - the situation would appear to be that you work through your own Ltd Co and secured some contract work with an advertising agency for a verbally agreed daily rate of £385.00. At some point you decided that, if you worked, what you considered to be, longer than a standard working day you would bill more than the agreed daily rate.

If this summary is correct then the client is correct in revisiting your timesheets as they have not been charged in accordance with the agreed rate. You work in business on your own account - if you ended up working a 16 hour day then you either need to accept that, as a business man, there will be times when you will need to work above and beyond those hours that are acceptable in the permie world or you will need to negotiate with the client so that you don't end up out of pocket. Either way, as a business man, you should ensure, moving forward, that you never work without a written contract which is negotiated between all parties and that you understand your responsibilities as a Director of a Ltd Co - as a matter of interest have you been operating PAYE on your earnings or have you taken dividends from your company - if it's the latter and you don't understand IR35 you may end up with a rather unpleasant visit from HMRC.

[psychocandy]

Oh dear - verbal contract.

OP - Does sound like client/agent is trying it on a bit now though and are a bit put out your leaving. IMHO, if you've got a day rate then the client/agency can't sign off timesheets in the first place and then go back retrospectively and moan about it.

If you turn up and do 6 hours every day then I'd say client has got to raise this as an issue at the time not months later but there we go.

Always dangerous filling out internal timesheets like this and allowing for slack. didnt they have an admin code or something? thats what I did in the past if client was dead keen on breaking it all down.

Alternatively, dont worry about this break time and just roll it all in. i.e. If you're working on one end client for the day stick it down as 7-30 and dont bother with 7 hrs work 30 mins in the crapper. Stick it all down.

Do you think the big consultancies say to their customers, tell you what we'll knock 30 mins (7%) off this days bill cos the consultant had a bit of a dodgy curry the night before and had a few 10 mins dumps?

[meridian]

OP - the situation would appear to be that you work through your own Ltd Co and secured some contract work with an advertising agency for a verbally agreed daily rate of £385.00. At some point you decided that, if you worked, what you considered to be, longer than a standard working day you would bill more than the agreed daily rate.

If this summary is correct then the client is correct in revisiting your timesheets as they have not been charged in accordance with the agreed rate. You work in business on your own account - if you ended up working a 16 hour day then you either need to accept that, as a business man, there will be times when you will need to work above and beyond those hours that are acceptable in the permie world or you will need to negotiate with the client so that you don't end up out of pocket. Either way, as a business man, you should ensure, moving forward, that you never work without a written contract which is negotiated between all parties and that you understand your responsibilities as a Director of a Ltd Co - as a matter of interest have you been operating PAYE on your earnings or have you taken dividends from your company - if it's the latter and you don't understand IR35 you may end up with a rather unpleasant visit from HMRC.

I think it goes a little bit further than this - the OP charged on a combination of daily rate for any day s/he was in the office, adjusted to increase a bit on some days that s/he worked more than 8 hours, but then only filling in time sheets for hours that the agency considered "billable" to their end client, and it now looks like the agency is going back to recalculate on only the billable hours and not the retention time?