Questions about contract billing...
Howdy,
Some questions about billing in a scenario where the customer has hired the contractor for full-time work (37.5 / 40 hours per week).
If the customer requires you to use their systems (e.g. laptop, software) and you have to setup appropriate development environment, do you bill for that time?
There are some initial hiccups in the first days of contracting on the customer's premises such as getting authorization for physical / network access, licenses for software (again, the customer wants the contractor to use their systems), etc. Do you bill the customer for the idle hours (e.g. waiting for authorizations to be approved)?
Do you bill the customer if nothing can be done due to their fault (e.g. network downtime) while you're at their premises or if you leave their premises (i.e. go home)?
Say, you work the 37.7 or 40 or similar amount of hours per week on the customer's premises. How much are you billing on average?
Any other things I should be aware of?
If the client requires you to be there for 37+ hours a week, you are a contractor, not a consultant. In essence, you are supplemental staff and will usually be required to fill out a time sheet.
For a customer that requires me to be onsite full time, I bill for time I am at the office (available to do work). The clock starts ticking when I arrive in the morning, and doesn't stop until I leave for the evening. I subtract time taken for lunch and/or breaks. On Monday, I submit a timecard for the previous week for customer signature.
This is pretty much standard across the industry. Some recruiters have asked me to bill for lunch as well, but I don't. I feel that is just crossing the line. I usually put down a minimum of 30 minutes for lunch even when I scarf down a sandwich at my desk.
Meetings, reading specifications, writing documentation, coding, talking to people -- all of this is billable. If the network is down, or you are setting up your own development environment -- it is billable.
When I telecommute (or work small side projects), I only bill for actual time worked on post it notes. Prep time, research, coding, and phone time are billed in 15 minute increments.
When it is time to generate the invoices, I sweep the post it notes together and generate the invoices. So far this system works pretty well.
Labels: Business, Consulting, Startup
