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Would you/ do you bill for time wasted by clients?

Greenwud

Hot Rolled
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Location
New Zealand
As in the title, do you bill for time wasted by clients?.
Situation is a client I work together with, requiring a specialist setup of almost the entire workshop turned up at midday and didn't like being billed for 2 hours waiting about. Job starts at 10 am and I was ready the night beforehand.
From my perspective, I can't any other productive jobs once the workshop is set up to do their job. Its about basic respect for other's time.
From their perspective, they would like to keep costs down even if it means wasting my time.

Thoughts please?
 
Was this a time & materials job? Invoiced after the job, with no quote before a PO was issued?

If you don't have it established already - a MINIMUM charge needs to be thought over. Be it minimum service charge, minimum 4-hours shop rate, etc... That's about the only way I could see you getting away with charging for "wasted time." But only if they are made aware upfront, before the job hits your floor. (And before you begin work - setup, or whatever.)

"Labor - 4 hours (shop min.)" will look a whole lot better on an invoice than "wasted time" for darn sure...
 
I have always wondered what goes on inside the head of someone that likes paid for their time yet gives mine no value. I have had a couple of customers that have done us that way and I have made it clear to them that in the future the clock will start at "such and such time" in the morning if you are here or not. Life has been easier for since we have quit doing their work though one has come back promising to be better and so far he has been. The root problem I think is that in my upbringing it was hammered in that if you are not early then you are late, to this day if I cannot be early I would rather not go, many folks got a different lesson I am afraid.
We have added a few PITA charges to some customers.
 
It depends on the client. If he is a great customer who doesn't complain much and his checks don't bounce I look the other way on the wasted time. If he is a PITA and isn't a good part of my business I bill him for being late.
 
As in the title, do you bill for time wasted by clients?.
Situation is a client I work together with, requiring a specialist setup of almost the entire workshop turned up at midday and didn't like being billed for 2 hours waiting about. Job starts at 10 am and I was ready the night beforehand.
From my perspective, I can't any other productive jobs once the workshop is set up to do their job. Its about basic respect for other's time.
From their perspective, they would like to keep costs down even if it means wasting my time.

Thoughts please?

Another option would possibly be to not start setting up the shop for their project until they show up.
 
Yep it is tough. I have never worked anywhere that this was not a problem. One place I worked was a job shop repair (the large majority of work) and local companies which included factories who had hundreds of employees depended on our work. It involved receiving a item to repair to get them back online or rebuilding what they needed. They were shut down and their people were waiting bleeding money.

We were at the shop full time until we finished their job often waiting for items from the factory to be packed up and sent to us and those companies paid us the whole time. Getting paid triple time was the norm.

Sometimes we had a wait of a few hours where we would go hang out at someone’s apartment watching cable to the kill downtime until our customer caught up to us. Often a lot of welding and assembly with presses and parts of all kinds often heat treated.

We repaired our own machines largely also. Fond times before the Exodus of American manufacturing.
 
Simple soloution to a simple problem.

If they are not on time. On to the next job, and they can reschedule or show up on time next time. No need to bill unless waiting after hours just for them, because you are open said amount of HRs, you are there anyways.
only bill if you had to go to them at an agreed time and wait to pick said item up etc.
 
It depends on the client. If he is a great customer who doesn't complain much and his checks don't bounce I look the other way on the wasted time. If he is a PITA and isn't a good part of my business I bill him for being late.

This guy is a bully, pays late and comes with an attitude and loud voice...I feel justified but it doesn't feel good- and I got a verbal for my effort.
 
This guy is a bully, pays late and comes with an attitude and loud voice...I feel justified but it doesn't feel good- and I got a verbal for my effort.

Got a verbal? A verbal reprimand? So you're a foreman or shop lead, not the owner or high-level manager?

If you've no real say in the matter, let the higher-ups know the disruption cost and carry on with your day. If you have to work with this bad client and don't want to, start polishing up the resume and looks elsewhere.
 
As in the title, do you bill for time wasted by clients?.
Situation is a client I work together with, requiring a specialist setup of almost the entire workshop turned up at midday and didn't like being billed for 2 hours waiting about. Job starts at 10 am and I was ready the night beforehand.
From my perspective, I can't any other productive jobs once the workshop is set up to do their job. Its about basic respect for other's time.
From their perspective, they would like to keep costs down even if it means wasting my time.

Thoughts please?

The problem would be getting paid. You can bill all you want. When I work in another's shop, the clock starts running 5 minutes after I enter. The 5 minutes is allotted for me to say my hello's and such. Then the timer starts. I detest having time wasted, but also, it's very hard to get some folk to pay. I've cut people off for eternity because of this.
 
As in the title, do you bill for time wasted by clients?.
Situation is a client I work together with, requiring a specialist setup of almost the entire workshop turned up at midday and didn't like being billed for 2 hours waiting about. Job starts at 10 am and I was ready the night beforehand.

Who are you billing for the 2-3 hours between the shop opening and 10am?
 
This guy is a bully, pays late and comes with an attitude and loud voice...I feel justified but it doesn't feel good- and I got a verbal for my effort.

I should hope someday soon you can send him down the road.
 
This guy is a bully, pays late and comes with an attitude and loud voice...I feel justified but it doesn't feel good- and I got a verbal for my effort.


I've heard from several wise folks, "If a customer doesn't make you smile when you see him coming, you aren't charging him enough".
 
I didn't see you respond to Jashley in post #2. Whether this is a quoted job or cost plus is an important factor that determines the correct course of action.

If it's a quoted job, and progress is dependent on the customer, and lack of progress impacts your ability to continue with other work, then you need to have a liquidated damages clause on the quote. If the customer holds you up, he pays your incurred losses.*

If it's a cost plus job, then you bill him from the time you started waiting.

If he doesn't pay, they you move him to COD for future jobs, and you make sure to tell him why he is on COD in explicit terms.

*One part of our business is large capacity load testing, the hourly rate is very high because there is a lot of work involved in setting up whichever test bed for a specific job, and the overheads of running it all are high. The jobs are usually quoted as a per unit/test cost, with the setup hours amortised and built in. This work is inherently dependent on the customer showing up on time with everything that was agreed. Frequently they do not, and if they miss their allocated window through fault of their own, and we have another customer waiting, they pay for it anyway. If there is nothing else waiting, and they can get their shit together and come back before there is something else waiting, we will usually let them off the hook.

In the machineshop however, we tend to handle this on a customer by customer, or sometimes machine by machine, basis. 90% of the time our machining jobs are from bought in raw material, so it's rarely an issue.
 








 
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