Quick question about billing time...

[Upinthestars]

Hi

I have to raise my first invoice for some work I have done. They want a breakdown of time worked - fine, but I have lots of 2hr 57 mins, 3 hr 23mins etc. as the job is not a set amount of work each week and I just work until it's finished.

Do you round up/down to the nearest 1/4, 1/2 or full hour? I presume that I add them all together and then round up/down the final total?

I am fine if I have to round down - lost money but a learning experience. I don't want to rip the company off, but don't want to lose money (I don't get paid much!) unnecessarily and wondered what others do.

Many thanks.

In your instance I would invoice for 6.5 hours (3 + 3.5) and I would timesheet for 2.57 and 3.23.

For me that kind of rounding up would be entirely reasonable - it's only 3 and 7 minutes obviously - but I don't know what type of work you do. Lawyers work to 6 minute timesheets for example.

I would make sure you have something in your T&Cs so it's clear in future - rounding to 15/30/60 mins depending on your industry.

Thanks. I don't have a contract and it's all a bit ad-hoc...

Lots of my work is as well, don't worry. It's good to tighten things up just to look professional and avoid confusion though. You can always just put something on your timesheet/invoice that makes it clear.

I also have something on my invoices that details my payment terms (30 days) and specifies that currency fees or banking charges are the responsibilty of the remitter (because some banks charge to make payments and give the option of the payer or payee taking the charge). HTH

Good to know about the charges, I never knew (or thought) about that!

Thanks again!

I round up to the nearest 1/4 hour. It's what the agency I used to work for did and I adopted the same practice.

As long as you have told them in advance how you will be rounding then it should be ok. You might also need to give quotes in advance if you're doing work where your instructions come in over the phone due to the consumer contracts regs (and be aware that they can cancel within 14 days so be careful about when you start the work unless you have the express consent to start before the 14 day cancellation period)

As PP said, lawyers work to 6 minute rounding. We get lots of moans about that. I would therefore be surprised if your clients would pay for rounding up to the hour. You could do 1 minute of work and charge them for an hour!

Thanks for all of your replies. Very useful!