Billing ?

[matler23]

The company I work for is allowing me to branch off and do some web development. Unfortunately when I started web design work I didn't have any policies in place. We've ran into an issue and I wanted to see how your companies would handle it:

When I started working on this particular website, it took me about 1.5 hours to download all of their existing files. I recorded this in my time spreadsheet as non-billable time. After I turned in my time sheet, the person in charge of accounting said we should bill for this time since it was time spent using the company's computer. I didn't feel right about this because it wasn't like I was sitting there waiting for the download to finish...I was doing other things while the files were downloading. I asked my wife who used to work for a web development company in Austin how they would have handled it. She said they would bill for 15 mins at their normal rate. She said that there was time spent setting up FTP even though it may have been 2 or 3 mins. I was ok with this, but our accountant is still pushing to find out how "other" companies would handle this and I wanted to see what y'all thought.


Thanks for any advice,


Mat Powell

[buntine]

Personally, i would consider this time as billable.

Considering the time is being spent organising resources for the project, it is justified and thus cant be questioned by the client.

Regards,
Andrew Buntine.

[olaf]

If you have to tell the customer for what he have to pay (for downloading files) then you should not. If the amount for the whole project is too small then give the download time just another name. These are points where the customer could become a little :mad:

[matler23]

We are showing all items exactly...we're not going to hide charges.


Originally posted by olaf
If you have to tell the customer for what he have to pay (for downloading files) then you should not. If the amount for the whole project is too small then give the download time just another name. These are points where the customer could become a little :mad:

[olaf]

normally i do the same. In this case the download is done for free.
:D

[andersonwd]

Same here. I don't charge people for acquiring the necessary resources that they themselves have provided to complete a project. Now, if I have to do research, locate stock photography, etc., then I bill them for my time.

[Intensity]

Technically you were there on time used up by the company. You had to wait for the 'company' files to be uploaded. It is not like you purposely made it slow. What where you supposed to do while waiting? If there was nothing else to keep you busy then you where in luck. Take the money and run!!!
It is not your fault that the upload time took that long. They should have invested in a faster ISP.

Ps: Next time just download the txt files at first and start getting familiar with them while the long waiting image downloads take place.