Cancellation Charges and Admin Fees - Freelance consulting.
Folks,
I would like to get your valued opinions on the following;
I am a freelance consultant that when I am not in a fixed term contract use a consultancy company to get additional work.
Recently I took time out of my fixed term to do a 5 day gig with a company I have not worked with before - a kind of taster if you like.....
Anyway after phone calls were made; flights booked, hotel booked, car hire booked, and basic admin - and all paid for out of my pocket, I received news that the gig had been pulled at the 11th hour by the Client.
Because I am not working with the client direct, I am going through this consultancy group, in your opinion should I be charging a small cancellation fee - IE the time I spent getting everything ready.........
I did not have a contract in place for this gig as it was a small taster but I have been left with somewhat of a bad feeling in my mouth.
When I last spoke with the consultancy company they advised they did not have a cancellation clause with the client and would not be able to recoup anything other than my expenses.
I am cool with this if I have to put it down to a lesson learnt - and in future before I agree to anything I will ensure I have something signed which includes cancellation/admin costs.
For the type of work I do on the consultancy as a matter of course the client does not pay for the work until the end of the project and when the timesheet and Statement of Work has been agreed and signed off.
Have any of you experienced this sort of thing before and what did you do.
The problem I have is if I were to do anything like book a flight/hotel/holiday etc and I cancelled it within 48 hours of the time I would be subject to a cancellation fee so surely it makes sense for me to do similar.
The problem I have is I do not want to set standards so high and costly that people will not bring business my way and on the flip side of this I would not want to be taken as a push over and just be passed risky business that maybe cancelled at the last minute........
Anyway any feedback would be awesome.
Thanks
I would like to get your valued opinions on the following;
I am a freelance consultant that when I am not in a fixed term contract use a consultancy company to get additional work.
Recently I took time out of my fixed term to do a 5 day gig with a company I have not worked with before - a kind of taster if you like.....
Anyway after phone calls were made; flights booked, hotel booked, car hire booked, and basic admin - and all paid for out of my pocket, I received news that the gig had been pulled at the 11th hour by the Client.
Because I am not working with the client direct, I am going through this consultancy group, in your opinion should I be charging a small cancellation fee - IE the time I spent getting everything ready.........
I did not have a contract in place for this gig as it was a small taster but I have been left with somewhat of a bad feeling in my mouth.
When I last spoke with the consultancy company they advised they did not have a cancellation clause with the client and would not be able to recoup anything other than my expenses.
I am cool with this if I have to put it down to a lesson learnt - and in future before I agree to anything I will ensure I have something signed which includes cancellation/admin costs.
For the type of work I do on the consultancy as a matter of course the client does not pay for the work until the end of the project and when the timesheet and Statement of Work has been agreed and signed off.
Have any of you experienced this sort of thing before and what did you do.
The problem I have is if I were to do anything like book a flight/hotel/holiday etc and I cancelled it within 48 hours of the time I would be subject to a cancellation fee so surely it makes sense for me to do similar.
The problem I have is I do not want to set standards so high and costly that people will not bring business my way and on the flip side of this I would not want to be taken as a push over and just be passed risky business that maybe cancelled at the last minute........
Anyway any feedback would be awesome.
Thanks
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