Travel Time 4

[SteelPE]

Here is another question I have struggled with. I am doing consulting work for myself now working out of my house. I live out in the boonies and most of my projects are about 1 hour or so in any given direction. My question revolves around travel time. If I am going to work on a project that is 1 hour away and it requires me to visit the site 3 times do I charge my client for the travel time to and from the project (in this example 6 hours+the time onsite) or do you cut your client some slack?

Most of my projects are done through proposals I submit to my client before the project begins. I do the best I can to figure out ahead of time how much time I need to spend onsite and then include that time in my proposal. So far, I have been figuring a flat 2 hour fee per visit (1 hour for travel and 1 hour for the actual visit) regardless if the job is 2 hours away...... but it is beginning to add up and I don't want to come out on the short end. How do others handle this?

 

[fel3]

I always charge for reasonable travel time plus other travel costs. Even though travel time is not "productive" in the sense that you're not at your desk grinding out your deliverables, it's time you spend for the benefit of your clients and sometimes to the detriment of your own life. Thus, you should be compensated for it. It doesn't matter where you live in relation to the work. If they want you on the project, they should pay for the privilege. In the whole scheme of things, a little additional travel time cost will NOT break the bank, especially considering the total lifecycle cost of the project to the owner.

Let me illustrate this with a little story about the one and only architect I hope to never meet again, let alone work for again. He and I had worked together on several projects for the California Deparment of Corrections, once as parallel consultants and several times with me and my old firm as his site civil subconsultant. The owner is in Sacramento, I'm in Fresno, and he's based in Portland, OR, even though his firm has an office and a justice architural group in San Francisco. One day he called and said our team had been selected for a project and he would be emailing the RFP so I could work up a fee. I emailed him my fee proposal the next day for upwards of $250,000 and soon received a very irate phone call from him. It went something like this:

Jerk (name changed to protect the guilty): "You can't charge 10 hours for a 4-hour meeting."
Me: "It's a 3-hour one-way drive for me, so each meeting takes me 10 hours. Four meetings is 40 hours."
Jerk: "But, you can't charge more than 8 hours per day."
Me: "Sure I can and I will."
Jerk: "But the Department won't pay for it."
Me: "They aleady do on my other projects."
Jerk: "I can't accept this. You have to change it."
Me: "No."
Jerl: "Well, I can just replace you with another engineer."
Me: "You know full well that we're by far the most experienced civils working for the Department and they recommend us to architects looking for a civil. Do you really want to go back to the Department and tell them your breaking up the team that won the competetition all because you won't pay me what it's worth for the four meetings I have to attend? They might just select the #2 team. Besides, you have 8 meetings to attend and you're coming out of Portland. The Department is paying your airfare, your hotel, your rental car, and far more than 8 hours per meeting because your travel time is even more than mine becauseh it spans two days. They could just have easily picked an architect from Sacramento and avoided all your additional travel costs. If you get to charge your travel time, it's not reasonable that I don't get to charge mine."
Jerk: "You have to change this."
Me: "No."
Jerk: "We'll see about this."
Me: "Fine, but I'm still charging 10 hours per meeting."
…I got my fee.

BTW -- My travel time is decidedly NOT productive because I avoid talking on my cell phone while I'm driving. I know from past experience that my own car-handling skills decrease while I'm on the phone (even with hands-free) and the car-handling skills of the drivers around me seem to decrease even more when I'm on the phone…so, no longer. I listen to audio books or a podcast I've downloaded to my phone. If the drive is over about two hours, I usually stop halfway to check my phone for messages.

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[JedClampett]

I'd charge anything beyond your normal commute to the project. And since you work from home, well the drive to the project is your commute. And don't forget to charge mileage at the going IRS rate.
If you're driving, you can't be billing any other client, so this is legitimate.

 

[greenone]

For local travel, we include travel time in the hours we charge to to the task-e.g.,if I go to a meeting, meeting lasts an hour, RT travel is an hour, we charge 2 hrs to the meeting, plus mileage and tolls and parking. For out of the local area, for time outside of 8-5, we charge 60% of the hourly rate. Time traveling on normal business hours are charged at normal rate.

 

[zdas04]

I don't talk on the phone while driving either, but my clients are paying me to think about stuff. They pay a welder to weld, an electrician to electric, and an Engineer to think about stuff. I'm never not thinking about stuff. The time I spend in front of my computer documenting stuff and verifying stuff is all time that I'm not really thinking about stuff. I frequently get in the car and take a 300-400 mile drive to get away from my computer--and yes, I charge my clients for the time (but not usually for the mileage).

It really bothers me when Engineers accept that if they aren't grinding out "deliverables" they aren't working. I always charge for travel time, and when clients have said "we won't pay for travel" I say "then hire someone who lies about the hours they work"

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[strucguy]

I work for a 35 member consulting firm. We charge for both travel time and mileage and we haven't had a case where the client had a issue with it. This practice is very normal even with independent consultants. If the client values your work, they should value your time too. Simple!!

 

[msquared48]

I charge for travel too. Who is to say when you are thinking about the job and when you are not. I have solved a lot of problems whan I was not in the office.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[Ron]

Agree with all....legitimate charge. Time is time...whether traveling or in front of your client. I charge the same rate for whatever I do for a client...analysis, research, travel, expert testimony.....all the same.

Well said zdas04....

 

[DRWeig]

We charge all travel time. The MBAs in the corner offices call it "opportunity cost." If it takes three hours to go to a one-hour meeting and return, there are two hours in the car during which I could have been putting in billable hours for another client. If I don't charge two hours worth of productive, billable time is lost forever, poof.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies

 

[ajack1]

I firmly believe that good business is done in an open, honest and transparent way.

For that reason I always put in my quotation that travelling time and mileage will be charged at xx. If it is a fixed price I will state this quotation includes two visits (assuming that is the number I believe to be correct) to your site any additional visits will be charged at xx.

The way I see it if someone quotes me a price for a service that is what I expect to pay, if they start adding unspecified extras I get annoyed. So I try to treat others the way I would want them to treat me.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

We just charge a flat fee of about $2500 per day for being out of the office. We are good and the people that want good service - pay it. Seems to solve most problems!!