Charging for phone meetings on days not working for clients..advice please..

[hattyyellow]

I'm working for a client who have bought 18 days of my time over several months. They've asked to have telephone meetings on several days when I'm not working or am working for someone else.

I'm now doing my first invoice for them and I feel that they should pay me for the telephone meetings as I've incurred childcare costs on a couple of these days.

I think they're going to kick up a fuss about this as they've budgeted a set amount for my time. But they were the ones who actually requested I work for them no more than 2 days per week so as to spread out my time with them.

I also want to bill them for travel as I live outside London and they want me to attend a meeting with their clients next week.

They have the mentality that my living outside London and having children is "my problem". I'm in my rights to bill them for these costs aren't I? I mean they knew when they took me on that I work outside London and work part-time as I have small children..

My daily rate is £250, working out to about £35 per hour. So for each phone meeting (about 30 minutes) I was planning to charge them £15. Sound about right? My childcare for an hour (minimum I can book) is about £12. Although I also have prep time for getting ready for the phone meeting - should I round it up to an hour?

In all of a dither as they are a horrible horrible client, but one that pays well and provides lots of work...

bill them for the time spent working.

itemise it.

If they don't want to pay, they shouldn't be using your services!

What is in your t&c? because it is essential to have all your charges down there. What you will bill for and at what rate and whether you bill a minimum hour, half hour or minimum hour then rounded to next 15mins / 30 mins after that, etc.

oh, but childcare isn't something you should bill them for. That looks really unprofessional.

Just make your hourly rate include childcare in your costs! so your hourly rate would be £35 + £12 = £47. You don't need to tell them how that breaks down! (unless you mean the £35 includes the £12 childcare? in which case it's just £35 and still not their concern how you've calculated it)

travel costs - again, should be clearly stated in your t&c. Not unreasonable but must be clearly set out at the commencement of your working relationship. You can't spring costs on someone at a later date.

I don't have terms and conditions - I know, I know I should but a lot of my work is done on recommendations/informal word of mouth/informal basis - I really must get some done..

£35 doesn't include childcare, it's just my flat fee for half an hour, but they know my daily rate is £250 so if I added childcare on top of that - they would question it..does £15 sound reasonable for half an hour phone meeting?

Travel costs is tricky - when I've worked for these people before I've always paid my travel to have an initial meeting with them and they've then done the client facing meetings- it makes much more sense as I'm so far away and they're in central London. I prep them and advise where necessary. However, one of their main consultants has left and so they have no one that experienced to do the meetings.

At my initial meeting with the new and very inexperienced consultant, he said I would be working in the same way and they've now moved the goalposts by asking me to attend meetings/be a key point of contact etc. It's daft really asking me to build up relationships with clients when I'm only with them for 15 more days! So things have changed rapidly and this is the first travel claim we're facing..

Well, your problem is no t&c. That's your mistake. And it's one you need to rectify at once.

Recommendations, word of mouth, informal - irrelevent. Once they say they want to work with you, the first thing you do is supply them with your t&c.

If you charge him £15, then £12 of that will go to your childcare. Which means you did a half hour phone call for £3.

Now, did you phone him or did he phone you? Because that £3 - how much of that went on the phone call itself?

You could easily be making a loss on £15.

Far better to have a one hour minimum and then a per 15 min after that.

IN YOUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS!!!!!!

You need to contact them. Today. You need to tell them what your charges will be.

for god's sake don't say childcare costs!

And you need agreement from them. in writing - email - that they agree to these terms.

Or you don't meet with them.

The thing is, you are not their employee, are you? I assume you are a consultant? So they don't call the shots. You offer your services, these are the terms, they accept or not. You are coming across like they are your employer. That's not the case.

Can you do 2 seperate invoices? 1 for your days and 1 for the telephone meetings. Then if they kick off about the telephone meeting costs - they won't hold up payment of the big invoice?

Send the telephone invoice along with a copy of your t&c's you've quickly knocked up - with a letter along the lines of - since we seem to have deviated from the original agreement - here are my t&c's for future ref. And include on there your travel costs - maybe say intial meeting FOC and subsequent ones incurring travel costs.

You can't bill them for something you've not agreed up front. That's very unprofessional.

If they ask you to work on days you don't work you simply say "Yes that's fine, but that is going to be overtime at a rate of £XX. Can you please jot me a quick email confirming you're happy with the additional fee? Alternatively we can book in on X or Y day".

I think you also need to agree the travel with them in advance too. I assume it's part of your job that you need to attend meetings etc? And if they pay you a day rate I'd expect that to include the cost of you getting to your usual place of work with anything different to be agreed and expensed separately.

If you're self-employed aren't some of these expenses tax deductable?

What you musn't do is introduce charges by stealth because you will damage your repuatation and future contracts.

if you have no T&Cs then I cannot see where you can claim extra travel costs and childcare when you have not informed them you would be - they are correct that where you live and your family circumstances are not their problem
as a self employed person you should factor all your costs into your daily rate
and if planning on charging travel show a set mileage rate
as to the extra telephone meetings these should be invoiced separately as an extra (this also stops them holding up your main agreed invoice) - they cannot expect extra work for nothing

Your daily rate is one thing, your hourly rate is another. It is perfectly accpetable to charge more for an individual/ad hoc hoour than what you would charge for a full day.

Look on the daily rate as "discounted" becasue they have "taken" the whole day - or the hourly rate as a "preimium" becasue of the inconvenience. If you are only going to bill them for the actual time spent on the phone, the rate you charge should also factor in the inconvenience and opportunity cost of not being able to do sometihng else.

I agree about confirming/outlining your Ts & Cs - which should include both a daily rate and a (different) hourly rate. Who pays for the phone call? It all adds up.

If your understanding when you took the job on was that you would only have to travel into London on one or two occasions - and factored that into the quote - you should tell them that the parameters have changed and that for meetings over and above that, you will need to charge x. It's your choice if you charge them for travel time and travel costs - but don't sell yourself short. IMO you should charge for extra travel and time - otherwsie they could start to will continue to abuse your goodwill.

You're all right, I do need to get the t&c's sorted out. Does anyone have a draft t&c they could show me a bit of?

This situation has never arisen before - because normally I meet a client initially and agree with them a daily rate and tell them that travel costs will be added on. Then I come down once or twice and it's all fine.

This contract has been odd as it's permanently changing - they asked me to do one thing and then are constantly asking me to take on more and more responsbility with no confirmation - "we'll come back to you on that" - "we need you to do this as well" - "can you come to this next week". I told them that the travel would be a cost but the new and very green consultant didn't tell his big boss. So that's why I'm concerned that she'll hit the roof.

I'm now e-mailing all of them about everything as none of them seem to talk to eachother - it's an agency with a really nasty atmosphere - a bullying boss and consultants who are scared of her - I think she barks orders and they all scurry off to do things - two consultants have quit or been fired which is why they are panicking and constantly asking me to do new things/changing what they want me to do/suddenly adding on meetings.

So I do feel that they need to pay me for this extra work- if they're missing two key members of staff who would normally be doing the face to face work they are saving money there! It's just wording it right when they've changed the goalposts from what they originally commissioned me to do..

t&c are a very individual thing! I could show you mine but they'd be useless to you because I don't do what you do.

I may have something somewhere. Hang on. I'll pm you.

"It's just wording it right when they've changed the goalposts from what they originally commissioned me to do.."

That's easy.

You commissioned me to do X under such and such terms. You have now requested Y & Z, the terms under which I will supply the new services to you are as follows. Please confirm your acceptance of these by email.

Hecate, you're an angel! Thanks so much for sending the t&c's through - I really appreciate it. Will sit down and draft a document based on these.

I've e-mailed the new consultant at the agency and said due to the changes in what they're asking me to do these are the extra costs incurred and what each thing will cost them. He's ok-ed it so even if his big boss goes mad about the extra costs, at least I've got one of them to agree it in writing and future costs will not be unexpected.

Thanks so much all.

my pleasure. I am sure you can put something together from all of those. xx

Remember - you're in business! You're not their mate and you're not their employee. And most importantly - you have to protect yourself!