In my mind, you have charging and you have billing and the two sides are distinct, especially if you have employees. I may be reading into this question based on my own experience and over analyzing, but your question generally leads to further questions.
I worked for a reseller who charged & billed 1/2 time for travel, and as a professional I always had an issue with this, because I was essentially penalized if I had to take a road trip, my production was lower because of that. Production was also rated on a dollar basis, not an hours billed basis. Meanwhile, we had a hardware tech in house who billed full rate all day long, because either clients brought in equipment or the network techs would bring in equipment when it made sense to do so. In my exprience with a CPA firm, both as a staff accountant and as the IT expert, I charge all my time attributable to the client's job to the client. It is then up to the biller to bill that time out appropriately. The biller than has the flexibility to writedown (or writeup) charges and can bill the client appropriately. Also, in our time and billing software we often include notes as to why a task took more or less time to complete to allow the biller to make informed decisions. The specific answer to your question, is that we tend to charge clients or standard rates for travel time. If an employee is travelling they cannot be doing other work, which may or may not be chargeable to a client, but the assumption is that there is always work that is chargeable to the client (our goal is 95% realization per employee). The bill may or may not reflect that when all is said and done. In certain cases, the invoice will have a notation to the effect of discount of travel time to show the writedown/discount amount. If you're looking to institute a fee for travel time, I do recommend you begin including that fee on any invoices, along with a corresponding discount if you think the client will balk at the increased costs. It illustrates to the client that you value their continued business by offering them a discount on services. -Jonathan On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Cesare' A. Ramos <[email protected]>wrote: > Hellos to all. > > > > Hope everyone is having a good Tuesday thus far. > > > > Have a question for all service providers and clients out there in e-Mail > list land: What are you currently paying or charging for travel to and from > clients? > > > > To the clients out there, what would you find unreasonable to pay? > > > > We are currently evaluating this to add to our service invoices but do not > want to be unfair to the clients. > > > > Thoughts appreciated.. > > > > CAR > > ------------------------------ > This e-Mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended > solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. > If you have received this e-Mail in error please notify the sender via > returned e-Mail. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this > e-Mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those > of the company. Although IDF operates anti-virus programs, it does not > accept responsibility for any damage whatsoever that is caused by viruses > being passed. > > ** Think before you print this message. ** > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
