expenses

[ft101]

Hello

Just curious what the usual practice is for contracts that require overnight stays (and perhaps flights) and resultant expenses. Is it fairly standard to get the client to cover expenses, or are these rolled up into a negotiated daily rate, usually?

Just curious for peoples experiences, I appreciate that every contract is different. What i'm getting at though, is that say my usualy daily rate is 500, but a short term contract comes up that requires flights (as well as accomodation) - would you raise your daily rate to cover the flights, or get the client to cover the 'extra' expenses?

Thanks

[oracleslave]

Hello

Just curious what the usual practice is for contracts that require overnight stays (and perhaps flights) and resultant expenses. Is it fairly standard to get the client to cover expenses, or are these rolled up into a negotiated daily rate, usually?

Just curious for peoples experiences, I appreciate that every contract is different. What i'm getting at though, is that say my usualy daily rate is 500, but a short term contract comes up that requires flights (as well as accomodation) - would you raise your daily rate to cover the flights, or get the client to cover the 'extra' expenses?

Thanks

We have had this debate on here a couple times before. Personally I always quote an excluding expenses rate and charge the client for all accomodation, travel etc. I thought this was the norm but the results of the subsequent poll indicated otherwise.

[ft101]

Ah sorry I didn't think to use the search - normally I do, but totally not with it today !

I'll check out the search, but appreciate your reply. Always worth updating a debate anyway

[KathyWoolfe]

Hello

Just curious what the usual practice is for contracts that require overnight stays (and perhaps flights) and resultant expenses. Is it fairly standard to get the client to cover expenses, or are these rolled up into a negotiated daily rate, usually?

Just curious for peoples experiences, I appreciate that every contract is different. What i'm getting at though, is that say my usualy daily rate is 500, but a short term contract comes up that requires flights (as well as accomodation) - would you raise your daily rate to cover the flights, or get the client to cover the 'extra' expenses?

Thanks

Businesses are IN business to make a profit.
If you accept a contract that involves you in paying out more money in expenses than normal, then you will be making less profit (it's called "reducing your margin").
In order to maintain your margin you either increase your fees for the service that you are providing, or you get the client to pay the expenses. If the client does not wish to pay these increased charges then you still have the option to accept the loss in order to gain favour with the client in the hope that he will seek your sevices again or you refuse the contract because for you it will be uneconomical.
Common sense really.

[BolshieBastard]

Hardly any clients will pay your accommodation expenses. Those that do are normally wher you are working abroad for them.

The only expenses clients tend to pay are those incurred when you have to travel between their sites. However, this isnt good from an IR35 point of view so you really shouldnt be looking for clients to re imburse you. As has already been said, you need to ask for a higher rate although that brings the possibility of pricing yourself out of the job.

[blacjac]

Hardly any clients will pay your accommodation expenses. Those that do are normally wher you are working abroad for them.

The only expenses clients tend to pay are those incurred when you have to travel between their sites. However, this isnt good from an IR35 point of view so you really shouldnt be looking for clients to re imburse you. As has already been said, you need to ask for a higher rate although that brings the possibility of pricing yourself out of the job.

Rubbish.
Every company I ever worked for as a permie used to recharge our expenses to our clients.

[alantan]

Rubbish.
Every company I ever worked for as a permie used to recharge our expenses to our clients.

WHS. It is common practise to charge expenses such as airfare, train tickets and hotels to the client for trips to meetings or to perform onsite work for the client's clients or prospects.

This has nothing to do with IR35 or control -- if you are a consultant charging for a whole project, you would still add on the expenses, either indirectly (usually only for fixed price projects) or directly by invoicing them.

Businesses often apply "uplift" to the expenses, in other words, charge more than they cost, to cover risk, interest, cashflow or just to make a profit. As a day-rate contractor it's unlikely you would get away with this.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Hello

Just curious what the usual practice is for contracts that require overnight stays (and perhaps flights) and resultant expenses. Is it fairly standard to get the client to cover expenses, or are these rolled up into a negotiated daily rate, usually?

Just curious for peoples experiences, I appreciate that every contract is different. What i'm getting at though, is that say my usualy daily rate is 500, but a short term contract comes up that requires flights (as well as accomodation) - would you raise your daily rate to cover the flights, or get the client to cover the 'extra' expenses?

Thanks

My very short experience on 2 contracts is that my clients pay the air tickets themselves and the hotel themselves when travelling abroad and I charge them for taxi fares in the UK to the airport and fares for local travel abroad. On one contract all my meals and incidentals were paid for as was the travel time - 2 x 13 hour flights but the contract was for less than 2 weeks so it was a significant time factor. On the other there were more trips only 1.5 hours flying time so no travel time paid as not significant in overall contract (6 weeks) with 3 or 4 trips expected for 2 days at a time and meals have not been paid for.

I'm lucky that both my contracts were direct with client (no agency) so I was able to have in my standard terms that that travel time for trips abroad that is a significant proportion of the work has to be paid for as well as the taxi, airfare and accommodation - I forgot to add the meals in the standard hence the current contract doesn't have them - I have to update my template contract!

When agencies phone me and ask me what my rate is I tell them it depends on who is paying for the airfares and hotels etc, that way I'm in a position to negotiate to the benefit of both parties.

Of course this does depend too on how much your skills are in demand etc.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

[malvolio]

My usual route is to use a set day rate to include the costs of working at the client's prime location (if there is one) and reserve the right to charge for exceptional expenses if I have to go elsewhere on their behalf. Never had a problem with that approach*, and it keeps the accounting simple.

There's also no problem using the client's resources to provide hotels and stuff for this kind of expense, since they often have better deals in place so everyone saves money.



*not strictly true. Got screwed by Computer People's interpretation of VAT on their self billing system once. After that, all off-site expenses were paid by the client up front.

[ft101]

Thanks for the replies everyone.. all very useful feedback with comments ranging from common sense (which it is in a way) to some very practical advice on communicating up front for exceptional conditions.

I think in future when asked my day rate, i'll ask about the travel requirements etc. When I worked in a financial services company previously I was involved in SoW's quite a bit, for contractors and bigger firms too. The approach ranged from a 'all in' quote to a baseline quote with expenses on top. In all cases, the supplier reserved the right to charge out of pocket expenses.

I guess at the end of the day, as was previously noted, it all comes down to ones own personal comfort level and profit margin requirement: Whats it worth to you?

Perhaps if this raised quite a bit, should it be a sticky or something similar.

Thanks again.