Travel Time

[bizwizone]

Hi, I have recently come back to contracting but I remember a contractor I used to work with and he used to charge for the his travel time into work.

His argument was that he is coming in for the company and hence someone has to pay for that time. I have been thinking about this and figure maybe I am missing a trick by not charging that time.

Any feedback here would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[bizwizone]

Please help!

Does anyone charge for the time that it takes to get to the contract and how is this negotiated?

[BrowneIssue]

If you advertise for a plumber, and one responds to your ad and says "£50 per hour plus £100 for the commuting time 'cos I live a hundred miles away", how would you respond? I assume you would say "No".

If you phone up a plumber a hundred miles away and say "Please do some work" and the plumber says "OK but it is £50 per hour plus £100 for the commuting time" how would you respond? Presumably you would have to agree.

Then again, if your oil well catches fire and there's no-one else in the world but Red Adair and he says "A million quid plus all my travel", would you quibble over the tickets?

Just how rare are your skills? How long is the contract? Would you settle for travelling expenses as opposed to travelling time? Is it work you could do at home but ClientCo is insisting you do it on a site of their choosing for no good reason?

Perhaps most importantly, how big are your balls and how naive is the client?

Don't forget that you personally will be claiming your travelling expenses from YourLtdCo so you do get something back, albeit some tax-discounted travel.

[gingerjedi]

I don't know anyone who charges for travel time, how would it work if say there were 5 contractors all on the same rate? The guy who lives closest loses out whilst the guy who has a 2 hour commute is quid’s in despite them all spending the same amount of time on the clients site??

Fair play if you can get the client to agree though!

[BrowneIssue]

The guy who lives closest loses out whilst the guy who has a 2 hour commute is quid’s in...

... and those of us doing a 250 mile trip twice each week are definitely quids in! I'll stop leaving at 1pm on Friday and leave at 4pm so that my journey takes the full 8 hours as I hit all that traffic.

[Gonzo]

I think that people could get away with things like that in the 1990s but the landscape has changed somewhat these days. I know people that could charge a "retainer" on top of their daily rate for days that they didn't work a decade ago, but I don't know of anyone doing that now.

Its no wonder companies have been looking to offshore as much as possible.

[OwlHoot]

I've certainly never charged for commuting travel time. But if the contract calls for business travel within the working day, for example between the client's customer sites, then I'm sure you'd be "morally" entitled to charge for the mileage even if not the travel time. But that would depend on the wording of your contract, and you might be better off just offsetting it against tax.

OTOH, if you were in a medium to long term contract and the client, or just your department, after a takeover for example, upped sticks and moved two hundred miles in the middle of a contract period (can happen at short notice) that would be different again.

[VectraMan]

But if the contract calls for business travel within the working day, for example between the client's customer sites, then I'm sure you'd be "morally" entitled to charge for the mileage even if not the travel time.

I've done that before, and just charged for the time I was travelling instead of mileage expenses. I figured the latter would be hassle, and the cost to the client wasn't all that different either way. And from a "moral" point of view, if you don't charge the time for travelling on the client's business, you're missing out on money because of that.

The other thing I did once was visit a seperate client's site on the way to my usual one. Then I took the view that my day started when I arrived on their premises, and finished when I left, even if they weren't the same place.

But I wouldn't charge for a regular commute, unless that was something offered at the start.

OTOH, if you were in a medium to long term contract and the client, or just your department, after a takeover for example, upped sticks and moved two hundred miles in the middle of a contract period (can happen at short notice) that would be different again.

My client moved me about 15 miles further away, but I just used that as part of the justification of getting an increase at renewal time. Which is another good way to play it.

[Turion]

Hi, I have recently come back to contracting but I remember a contractor I used to work with and he used to charge for the his travel time into work.

His argument was that he is coming in for the company and hence someone has to pay for that time. I have been thinking about this and figure maybe I am missing a trick by not charging that time.

Any feedback here would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Don't be put off by these responses. You've got a very good point and many contractors supplement their pay by charging for their travelling time. One guy I know who used to take the train now walks. Now his journey takes 4hrs each way so he effectively doubles his daily pay and has lost 10kg in fat during the last 6 months. So it's good for health as well. In fact the PCG are lobby the Govt to make these rules compulsory for contractors caught by IR35.

Go for it, it's a no brainer

[OwlHoot]

But if the contract calls for business travel within the working day, for example between the client's customer sites, then I'm sure you'd be "morally" entitled to charge for the mileage even if not the travel time.

[..] And from a "moral" point of view, if you don't charge the time for travelling on the client's business, you're missing out on money because of that.

Agreed - I meant to say "entitled to charge for the mileage as well as the travel time".