Can I sign more than one outside ir35 contract

[Rowth]

I am an IT contractor and I plan to sign contracts with more than one agency/client for work. Should I make anyone party aware that I will be providing my services to more than one client?

[ladymuck]

Sigh...

Are you operating as a business?

What do your contracts state regarding their expectation of your availability to deliver the work your clients are paying for? Many clients, whether rightly or wrongly, have an expectation that paying a day rate means a full day's work and your attendance as necessary.

It would be courteous to let your clients know that, as a consulting business, you manage your availability across multiple clients. If you're on a T&M contract then you should reassure them that you're only to going to charge for the time spent on their project. The concern will be that you're going to charge 5 full days a week but only put in 2 days effort. Mitigating this would be to move to fixed-rate deliverables / task-based contracts that only pays you when you deliver work by milestone dates to an agreed standard.

If you're thinking, I work from home, I'm not 100% busy so why not take on two full time contracts to complete at the same time, then you could quickly come a cropper when your clients require you to be in multiple places at the same time, or you miss deadlines because client B shouted louder.

[gables]

Sigh...

Are you operating as a business?

What do your contracts state regarding their expectation of your availability to deliver the work your clients are paying for? Many clients, whether rightly or wrongly, have an expectation that paying a day rate means a full day's work and your attendance as necessary.

It would be courteous to let your clients know that, as a consulting business, you manage your availability across multiple clients. If you're on a T&M contract then you should reassure them that you're only to going to charge for the time spent on their project. The concern will be that you're going to charge 5 full days a week but only put in 2 days effort. Mitigating this would be to move to fixed-rate deliverables / task-based contracts that only pays you when you deliver work by milestone dates to an agreed standard.

If you're thinking, I work from home, I'm not 100% busy so why not take on two full time contracts to complete at the same time, then you could quickly come a cropper when your clients require you to be in multiple places at the same time, or you miss deadlines because client B shouted louder.

All of that.

As an example of where I currently am (bank, inside IR35, day rate) I get the following on timesheet submission and I don't like lying:




Conceivably I could work for more than one client but why have the hassle unless I want to do more than an 8 hour day, which I don't :-)

[northernladuk]

I am an IT contractor and I plan to sign contracts with more than one agency/client for work. Should I make anyone party aware that I will be providing my services to more than one client?

Depends on your engagement and the expectation of your client. If you contract stipulates times, hours, days worked then doing any other work inbetween those times is a no no. You are contracted to them, you can't moonlight for another client on your current clients time. So got to make sure neither client stipulate any kind of working times. Even if it's not stipulated check there isn't an expectation. They may assume you'll be on their time between professional working hours. Saying it's not there when the crap hits the fan isn't a defence.

If both contracts don't stipulate a time and are delivery based meaning you can do the work whenever you want as long as deliver an outcome then feel your boots. Unusual to have this kind of contract so getting two might be a big ask.

Don't think you can get away with it because you are remote. You'll be in breach of contract, it will get very sticky constantly lying about dealing with calendar clashes and if they stipulate a return to the office you'll be screwed.

So in summary, can you do it? Yes but only in specific situations where the contract and work allow. If want to do it properly then fill your boots, if you just want to be greedy and double bill by ripping your client off then don't.

Counting down till the usual poster comes on with his sweeping statements waffle.....

[edison]

Depends on your engagement and the expectation of your client. If you contract stipulates times, hours, days worked then doing any other work inbetween those times is a no no. You are contracted to them, you can't moonlight for another client on your current clients time. So got to make sure neither client stipulate any kind of working times. Even if it's not stipulated check there isn't an expectation. They may assume you'll be on their time between professional working hours. Saying it's not there when the crap hits the fan isn't a defence.

If both contracts don't stipulate a time and are delivery based meaning you can do the work whenever you want as long as deliver an outcome then feel your boots. Unusual to have this kind of contract so getting two might be a big ask.

Don't think you can get away with it because you are remote. You'll be in breach of contract, it will get very sticky constantly lying about dealing with calendar clashes and if they stipulate a return to the office you'll be screwed.

So in summary, can you do it? Yes but only in specific situations where the contract and work allow. If want to do it properly then fill your boots, if you just want to be greedy and double bill by ripping your client off then don't.

Counting down till the usual poster comes on with his sweeping statements waffle.....

I had a similar situation last year when I had two concurrent clients for the first time. It's not as straightforward as it sounds in my experience. Both were outside IR35 with deliverables, one was for three days a week, the other for two days. Both clients knew I had another client and originally I worked set days per week for each. After two weeks it became apparent that only doing two days for one and then not being available for meetings for another three working days wasn't really workable.

I switched to working for both clients as and when suited me best, generally working for both clients each day. Worked well although I sometimes found it mentally tiring to keep switching from a meeting for client A to one for client B then back again. Maybe it's just me... my brother seems to be able to switch doing meetings with four or five clients a day easily.

[gables]

I had a similar situation last year when I had two concurrent clients for the first time. It's not as straightforward as it sounds in my experience. Both were outside IR35 with deliverables, one was for three days a week, the other for two days. Both clients knew I had another client and originally I worked set days per week for each. After two weeks it became apparent that only doing two days for one and then not being available for meetings for another three working days wasn't really workable.

I switched to working for both clients as and when suited me best, generally working for both clients each day. Worked well although I sometimes found it mentally tiring to keep switching from a meeting for client A to one for client B then back again. Maybe it's just me... my brother seems to be able to switch doing meetings with four or five clients a day easily.

which is fine as you're not double charging for the time :-)

[NotAllThere]

Yes, you can sign as many outside IR35 contracts as you like, and no, they don't need to know about each other*, but the question is "can you fufil all the contracts?".

If one of the contracts specified exclusivity, then you can't do that one. If two contracts require you to be available at the same time, you can't do both.

Conceivably, though you could have two contracts for 35 hours each and work 70 hours a week.


* Unless the contract demands it

[SussexSeagull]

Short answer: It depends for reasons discussed ad infinitum previously on here.