Reply to: Power cut, sent home.

[SueEllen]

No, and rightly so. This comes back to being flexible and treating your client as a paying customer and offering good service. I doubt anyone in their right mind is going to try and bill a full day by going a few minutes over what their contract says defines a half day. What happens in reality is you work 5 hours one day and either bill it as half a day with the mindset to offset the extra hour against another day or you write it down as a "loss" in the name of customer satisfaction. Either that or you do the opposite, bill it as a full day (with the client's prior knowledge and agreement) and accept that you will likely be expected to put those hours back in when the situation calls for it.

Personally I think the last option is a bit of a permie mentality though and I'd be very wary of effectively being paid up front for hours I didn't work. IMO it's much better to show flexibility by working the extra hours first and expecting that you may then be able to offset them against shorter days later - for example if you get stuck in traffic, have a doctors appointment etc.

Permie mentality?

You never worked for the horrid companies I worked for as a permie - they tried anything to dock pay and not pay out expenses.

I have more flexibility as a contractor.

[MrMarkyMark]

OK. By that rationale... I've had contracts less than 4 hours = half day, more than 4 hours equals full day.

So 4 hours and 1 minute passes. You bill full day as per contract. Then you tell client tough titty you're out of luck no more extras for you its in the contract. Yes perfectly legal and acceptable but they aint gonna be pleased are they?

As I said, my full day is anything > 5 hours.
Once the meter is over 5, even by a minute, I bill for a full day.

I have done this on a number of occassions during this contract, with full knowledge of the client and never had any issues.
Obviously, if I wasn't delivering they wouldn't be so flexible.

As I have said many times before, most of this sort of thing depends on the relationship that you have established with a particular client, very early on.

[Willapp]

OK. By that rationale... I've had contracts less than 4 hours = half day, more than 4 hours equals full day.

So 4 hours and 1 minute passes. You bill full day as per contract. Then you tell client tough titty you're out of luck no more extras for you its in the contract. Yes perfectly legal and acceptable but they aint gonna be pleased are they?

No, and rightly so. This comes back to being flexible and treating your client as a paying customer and offering good service. I doubt anyone in their right mind is going to try and bill a full day by going a few minutes over what their contract says defines a half day. What happens in reality is you work 5 hours one day and either bill it as half a day with the mindset to offset the extra hour against another day or you write it down as a "loss" in the name of customer satisfaction. Either that or you do the opposite, bill it as a full day (with the client's prior knowledge and agreement) and accept that you will likely be expected to put those hours back in when the situation calls for it.

Personally I think the last option is a bit of a permie mentality though and I'd be very wary of effectively being paid up front for hours I didn't work. IMO it's much better to show flexibility by working the extra hours first and expecting that you may then be able to offset them against shorter days later - for example if you get stuck in traffic, have a doctors appointment etc.

[psychocandy]

Or, as I said earlier, when a period of time has passed that is defined as a full day in the contract.



Can't make your mind up, can you

OK. By that rationale... I've had contracts less than 4 hours = half day, more than 4 hours equals full day.

So 4 hours and 1 minute passes. You bill full day as per contract. Then you tell client tough titty you're out of luck no more extras for you its in the contract. Yes perfectly legal and acceptable but they aint gonna be pleased are they?

[psychocandy]

You've changed your tune. That's completely the opposite to what you've said all along.



Not if it's written in to the contract they won't. They won't say they will do it for £500 (?), they would put a time sheet in showing half a day and get paid against the timesheet... as we've said all along.

Hmmm. OK maybe in a roundabout way.... Yes I do tend to go off and rant first lol.

[Willapp]

If some days one is expected to work 12 hrs due to exceptional reasons and only bill for a day then applying the same logic if only a half day was workable (due to another set of exceptional reasons) then a days billing it should be.

But as far as we know that's not what happened here. Nobody is arguing that there can't be some flexibility in balancing out extra hours worked against other days. This is about being told by the client to go home half way through the day for reasons beyond their control and some people thinking that makes it okay to bill it as a full days work. IMO that would only be acceptable if the client agreed that those missing hours were accounted for another day, but again that isn't what has been described here.

[SlipTheJab]

If some days one is expected to work 12 hrs due to exceptional reasons and only bill for a day then applying the same logic if only a half day was workable (due to another set of exceptional reasons) then a days billing it should be.

[MrMarkyMark]

The only caveat to this is if the contract specifically entitles the contractor to bill just for being available but I don't think this applies to 99% of cases.

Or, as I said earlier, when a period of time has passed that is defined as a full day in the contract.

Because its give and take. For most clients, it is likely this will balance out in the future with occasional long working days.

Can't make your mind up, can you

[Willapp]

Because its give and take. For most clients, it is likely this will balance out in the future with occasional long working days.

I'm all for give-and-take but I don't see that being applicable here at all. Working a few extra hours and "offsetting" that against the next day by coming in late and then billing both days as full days is quite different from being told by the client to leave the site (i.e. do no work) and expecting to bill a full day because you might at some point work that time back.

I don't always agree with NLUK but he's right that this seems like quite a permy attitude to me. Yes there's room for a bit of mutual back-scratching within the context of maintaining good relations with your client, but there's also what your contract defines as acceptable for both parties. In this case it feels right to me that the client sends their contractors home and wouldn't expect to pay when they got no work done. The only caveat to this is if the contract specifically entitles the contractor to bill just for being available but I don't think this applies to 99% of cases.

[northernladuk]

Because its give and take. For most clients, it is likely this will balance out in the future with occasional long working days.

You've changed your tune. That's completely the opposite to what you've said all along.

Wonder what a big consultancy would do? OK so they get asked to attend to do a job. It all gets booked into the calendar. £1500 a day. Consultant turns up - power cut half way through the day and that's the end of that. Do you think they would say ok we'll do it for £500? Nope. They'd charge the full amount. Not saying they wouldn't then be flexible and do what they can to finish the job (i.e. consultant visiting again for a few hours next time he was in the area) but thats all Im suggesting here...

Not if it's written in to the contract they won't. They won't say they will do it for £500 (?), they would put a time sheet in showing half a day and get paid against the timesheet... as we've said all along.

[psychocandy]

This is exactly what I was alluding to earlier. Most contracts are paid on a daily rate for a day's work so how on earth anyone can justify billing for a day and only working half is beyond me. Even if I knew it wouldn't be questioned I don't think I could bring myself to do this, it just feels wrong on every level.

A tradesman prices up a job as a fixed cost - albeit based on them working out how many days it should take them - and I can see them justifying a price increase if you caused that job to take longer by preventing them from accessing your property, if they couldn't fill that time with other work.

Because its give and take. For most clients, it is likely this will balance out in the future with occasional long working days.

Wonder what a big consultancy would do? OK so they get asked to attend to do a job. It all gets booked into the calendar. £1500 a day. Consultant turns up - power cut half way through the day and that's the end of that. Do you think they would say ok we'll do it for £500? Nope. They'd charge the full amount. Not saying they wouldn't then be flexible and do what they can to finish the job (i.e. consultant visiting again for a few hours next time he was in the area) but thats all Im suggesting here...

[d000hg]

But our kind of contracting, you're selling a day of your time and it's not fixed rate. I don't think there is a one-size-fits all answer to what is 'right' here. Depends on the people involved, the travel time/costs, etc. MOO is all well and good but if you've booked a hotel and travel for a week and they tell you after you've paid, travelled down and checked in "sorry, come back next week" are you going to take it without a fight?

[Willapp]

Not sure that's true. I mean does one book a tradesman for a day, or to come on a specific day to do a fixed piece of work? If they were very busy they might try to charge you, but on the other hand they might not especially if they had other work to do.

This is exactly what I was alluding to earlier. Most contracts are paid on a daily rate for a day's work so how on earth anyone can justify billing for a day and only working half is beyond me. Even if I knew it wouldn't be questioned I don't think I could bring myself to do this, it just feels wrong on every level.

A tradesman prices up a job as a fixed cost - albeit based on them working out how many days it should take them - and I can see them justifying a price increase if you caused that job to take longer by preventing them from accessing your property, if they couldn't fill that time with other work.

[d000hg]

Turning to the ever reliable tradesman analogy, if you booked a builder for a day and he rocked up on-site and you had no power/water available as agreed, you would get charged for the whole day.

Not sure that's true. I mean does one book a tradesman for a day, or to come on a specific day to do a fixed piece of work? If they were very busy they might try to charge you, but on the other hand they might not especially if they had other work to do.

[CoolCat]

I was sent home mid way through a day by the safety wardens ordering everyone home as there was a massive gas leak (industrial gas quantities not just domestic).

We all booked normal full days and got paid because there were no managers there and they didn't know about it until weeks after we had been paid anyways.

Seemed fair enough at the time, didn't cross my mind to book half a day when everyone else was booking full days.

We could have claimed to be working at home but I doubt anyone was actually.

Swings and roundabouts.