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    Billing Hour Segments

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IT Business
    billinghourscontract work
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    • DashrenderD
      Dashrender
      last edited by

      When remote it's 15 mins. When travel is involved (including in town) a min of 1 hour, then 15 min from the time I walk out my door until I return. Though often personally I don't charge for the return trip.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Mike DavisM
        Mike Davis
        last edited by

        I usually round to the nearest 15 minutes. If I let ConnectWise Manage keep track of the time (it has start stop timers) it tracks it by default to the 0.05 and I haven't changed it.

        What @Dashrender is describing is per trip charges and minimum trip charges. These are usually spelled out in your agreement as well as if you charge drive time and if you charge that at a different rate.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • Mike DavisM
          Mike Davis
          last edited by

          The other thing I would add if you're trying to figure out how to create your agreements, is if you charge a 15 minute minimum for each task. Lets say you have a "needy" client. They email you every half hour with a quick question. How do you bill? Myself I convert those clients to managed clients.

          EddieJenningsE 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
          • EddieJenningsE
            EddieJennings @Mike Davis
            last edited by

            @mike-davis said in Billing Hour Segments:

            The other thing I would add if you're trying to figure out how to create your agreements, is if you charge a 15 minute minimum for each task. Lets say you have a "needy" client. They email you every half hour with a quick question. How do you bill? Myself I convert those clients to managed clients.

            "Managed clients" are billed with a fixed rate?

            Mike DavisM scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Mike DavisM
              Mike Davis @EddieJennings
              last edited by

              @eddiejennings yes. Of course there are different ways of doing this. There is even on hybrid of managed vs break fix that is the prepaid block of hours classification. The next up is the managed contract that has covered items and non covered items. Typically what you see here is remote is covered and on site is additional billable. The premier offering is the AYCE (All you can eat) plan.

              Some companies break out their plans by a bronze, silver, and gold offering. They do things like patching is covered, but application support is not at the bronze level and at the gold plan even the office 365 licenses are covered.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Mike DavisM
                Mike Davis
                last edited by

                If you have a bunch of questions about the MSP world I would suggest Managed Services in a Month by Karl Palachuk:

                https://www.amazon.com/Managed-Services-Month-Successful-Consulting-ebook/dp/B078J7ZKV1/r

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @EddieJennings
                  last edited by

                  @eddiejennings said in Billing Hour Segments:

                  @mike-davis said in Billing Hour Segments:

                  The other thing I would add if you're trying to figure out how to create your agreements, is if you charge a 15 minute minimum for each task. Lets say you have a "needy" client. They email you every half hour with a quick question. How do you bill? Myself I convert those clients to managed clients.

                  "Managed clients" are billed with a fixed rate?

                  That's the assumption, yes, and why MSP is synonymous with fixed rate. MSP = managed clients = fixed / flat rate.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller
                    last edited by

                    For customers paying "by the hour" we normally do 15 minute increments. Anything less and the overhead of tracking costs more than the cost of the work, it gets totally silly. Lots of agreements will be something like "two hour minimum with fifteen minute increments after that."

                    thwrT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • scottalanmillerS
                      scottalanmiller
                      last edited by

                      It's important to remember to include things like documentation and task switching in the billable time, internal employees do that of course. If you don't as a consultant, you quickly figure out why that doesn't work - you have loads of time that is normally part of your workload for a task but that you start doing on your own time. Before long, you are working for free and can't figure out why.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • thwrT
                        thwr @scottalanmiller
                        last edited by

                        @scottalanmiller said in Billing Hour Segments:

                        For customers paying "by the hour" we normally do 15 minute increments. Anything less and the overhead of tracking costs more than the cost of the work, it gets totally silly. Lots of agreements will be something like "two hour minimum with fifteen minute increments after that."

                        ^ This. Never forget all sorts of side work. Billing and documentation are just two examples.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • dbeatoD
                          dbeato
                          last edited by

                          I charge by 8 minutes increments, that's just me because I go through tickets that way in average.

                          EddieJenningsE 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • EddieJenningsE
                            EddieJennings @dbeato
                            last edited by

                            @dbeato said in Billing Hour Segments:

                            I charge by 8 minutes increments, that's just me because I go through tickets that way in average.

                            Curious. How do you account for the last few minutes or an hour? Do you just have the last segment be 12 minutes?

                            scottalanmillerS dbeatoD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • scottalanmillerS
                              scottalanmiller @EddieJennings
                              last edited by

                              @eddiejennings said in Billing Hour Segments:

                              @dbeato said in Billing Hour Segments:

                              I charge by 8 minutes increments, that's just me because I go through tickets that way in average.

                              Curious. How do you account for the last few minutes or an hour? Do you just have the last segment be 12 minutes?

                              When would you need to round to an exact hour?

                              EddieJenningsE 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • dbeatoD
                                dbeato @EddieJennings
                                last edited by

                                @eddiejennings said in Billing Hour Segments:

                                . How do you account for the last few minutes or an hour? Do you just have the last segment be 12 minutes?

                                Actually I charge by 0.2 hour segments... that is my bad...

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • EddieJenningsE
                                  EddieJennings @scottalanmiller
                                  last edited by EddieJennings

                                  @scottalanmiller said in Billing Hour Segments:

                                  @eddiejennings said in Billing Hour Segments:

                                  @dbeato said in Billing Hour Segments:

                                  I charge by 8 minutes increments, that's just me because I go through tickets that way in average.

                                  Curious. How do you account for the last few minutes or an hour? Do you just have the last segment be 12 minutes?

                                  When would you need to round to an exact hour?

                                  Hmm. I suppose you don't. If your task goes into minute 56, you'd charge for the hour, so it wouldn't matter.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • gjacobseG
                                    gjacobse
                                    last edited by

                                    How granular do you want or even need to be? you could split Deskside and Server and have separate time slices for each.

                                    Deskside at 15 min increments
                                    Server as either 6, 10, 30, 60 min increments.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • brandon220B
                                      brandon220
                                      last edited by

                                      If you guys and gals charge for example $100/hour, do you charge the same rate for travel or a discounted rate?

                                      Mike DavisM DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • Mike DavisM
                                        Mike Davis @brandon220
                                        last edited by

                                        @brandon220 I've seen it done both ways. I charge the full rate. If I'm sitting in a car I usually can't be working on anything else. On the other had I rarely charge drive time since I focus my business on a particular geographic area.

                                        brandon220B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • brandon220B
                                          brandon220 @Mike Davis
                                          last edited by

                                          @mike-davis Same here. I have done it both ways.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • DashrenderD
                                            Dashrender @brandon220
                                            last edited by

                                            @brandon220 said in Billing Hour Segments:

                                            If you guys and gals charge for example $100/hour, do you charge the same rate for travel or a discounted rate?

                                            When I had to drive 4 hours to get to a client site, then 4 hours home.. yep... I charged full rate. But when I worked well past 5 PM, I didn't charge OT/after hour rates.

                                            When I had that client I would normally drive out (4 hrs) spend 8 hours onsite (leave at 10 PM), arrive at 7:30 AM work until 2 PM, then drive home.
                                            No OT for that first day where I'm on their time for 12+ hours.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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