Am I invoicing all wrong to my disadvantage??

[Clueless2000]

I’ve been freelancing for a couple of clients, p/t.

When I started with them, we discussed how many hours/days they need per month. But then what I’ve been doing is tallying the hours I actually do and billing them for that - which is sometimes less than the hours we’ve agreed.

For example, say we agree 5 days a month but then I actually only work 4.5 days - I bill them for the 4.5 days.

A friend said I’m doing it wrong and that I should bill them for the agreed days every month because if they’ve “booked” that time with me, potentially it means I can’t use that time to earn money elsewhere.

Is she right?? I feel so stupid for not knowing this!

I always bill for the days agreed unless its agreed with The Client that I won't on a case by case basis.
Having said that 99% of the time I do find ways to justify the full amount, its only if there is a cancellation or similar but then I have a minimum of a half day in my contracts

What do you do if you go over?

No, I appreciate I can’t suddenly change it.

I’ve not yet gone over.

In my contract, it just states the amount of days/hours and the corresponding fee.

@Hoppinggreen do you ever find that you go under the agreed hours? What would you do if you went over?

What also got me thinking is that in my first month with one of my new clients, they couldn’t give me all the info I needed for one of the tasks I had to do so asked me to do something else instead (which was fine) and they made a comment along the lines of “We’re paying for your time anyway so we might as well fill it” (in a nice way). So they were obviously expecting to pay me the agreed hours whatever?

It's all part of the learning when you're new to freelancing.

Ultimately it's up to you but quite standard to have a 'use it or lose it' clause in your contract for retainer work. The reason is if you've booked the time for Client A and they don't use it you can't go back in time and tell Client B you're available.

Worth getting your contract drafted by a professional too once you've got the funds if you haven't already. A lot of online templates aren't great.

@PurpleOliveCupboard yes, that’s what I was thinking - if I had lots of clients and billed actual rather than agreed hours for all of them, I’d have no way of knowing how much I was going to earn each month and could be turning potential clients down.

I feel I need to point out I’m not looking to screw over any of my clients and would suggest revising agreed hours if I was consistently under!

Does anyone just carry over unused hours to the next month with the view that it’ll probably all even out over the year?

@extrabubble yes - seems I need to look at my contract again…😳

If clients are reserving a portion of your time on a recurring basis then you should bill them for that time. Eg 1 day/week or whatever.

If it's project based work then you could have a fee for delivering the outputs, based on your experience of how long it will take.

What seems to be happening here is you're completing the work faster than you expected but the CLIENT is getting the benefit of your efficiency by paying less. That's not right.

Thanks @turkeymuffin I suppose another way of looking at it is that I’ve not estimated the time needed correctly?

Not sure why @extrabubble ‘s posts were deleted by MN??

I don't go over @Clueless2000 .
I build in some contingency and if it looks like I am approaching my agreed days I give the options of I can do x but not Y or vice versa - which would you prefer?
Or would they like to authorise another half day?
I have been Freelance for around 15 years and I made a lot of mistakes in the early days but I don't work for free now

That sounds a good approach @Hoppinggreen