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How To Charge for Admin/Office Time?

How To Charge for Admin/Office Time?

How To Charge for Admin/Office Time?

(OP)
I own my own business and recently I've been spending more and more time on administrative and office time. Up until now, I have simply charged my clients the exact cost of all project expenses, while also billing for my time. And while I am not losing any money out of pocket, the admin time is killing me.

One of the things I want to discuss (negotiate) is an administrative fee for managing their project expenses. Does anyone have experience with this in their own practice?

Is it cost plus X%? Cost plus admin time? Cost plus admin time x 2?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

RE: How To Charge for Admin/Office Time?

This implies that if you plan on working say a 40 hour week, only say 35 hours of this may be directly billable engineering and the rest would be spent on other stuff.

(Yes I know a 40 week is unlikely for many folks.)

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: How To Charge for Admin/Office Time?

If we have a project that looks like there is a lot of admin work that I have to do myself, we throw in our hourly charge into the contract. No one has questioned it so far. But it depends, what exactly are you wanting to charge for? An example is when someone wants me to play expediter. I will charge from the time I step out of the door until I get back into the door. But normal tasks like meeting a plan checker to discuss, well that should make my life easier and I don't charge for that trip. I think this depends a lot on what you want to realistically charge for.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer
http://bwengr.com | http://bwstructuralengineer.com | http://bwcivilengineer.com

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