Contractors

[Leisher]

I know there are other IT folk besides myself here, and I have a simple question about contractors.

When getting billed by an outside contractor, do you get charged for travel time?

We recently hired two different contractors. One to wire our new wing (this was the work agreed to before I got here Cake) and the other to simply examine the network architecture to help troubleshoot an odd problem with a server. (the second one was done at the urging of Dell, MS, and SBC who were all stumped by a intermittent comm failure in one of our recently relocated from California servers)

Anyway, the contractor that did the wiring was out of Detroit and sent several teams of people both from Detroit and ones located here, yet we were never charged any travel time.

The other contractor was local to this town, yet charged us $40 in travel time.

How common is this practice?

[mbilderback]

I've been working contract for quite some time. There are few circumstances where travel is charged. If you have multiple locations and I have to travel between them, you get charged for mileage on my car...usually around .31-.33 a mile. No biggie. If I fly, the company will be charged by my contract company for tickets/hotel/per diem. Now, if the company pays that directly, so be it. Travel time is not paid if it's to-from the location I expect to work daily and in the same place.

[Cakedaddy]

Depends on how the bids were originally set up. If they bid on the job, they would include their travel expenses in the bid. Thus, the cablers probably said "We'll do the job for 10k." And they figured in their labor costs, travel, materials, etc. Thus, you get billed 10k when the job is done.

However, if it was on a time and material basis, you would get billed for travel. Unless you negotiated ahead of time that travel not be included. This is normally done when someone needs a small job done. A phone line installed, a PC fixed, etc. The technician would bill you for his time on site, travel time, and any materials he used. Again, unless you specify ahead of time 'no travel'. I have clients going all ways. Some pay from the time I leave my office till the time I return. Some only pay one way. Some don't want to pay any. For the second two, I generally negotiate a minimum on-site time, or, raise my hourly rates to cover my travel expenses.

But, from what I've seen. Standard practice is to bill an hourly rate for travel when the job is being done on a time and material basis.

Prolly more info than you wanted, but, hope it helps.

[Leisher]

It does, thanks.

[GORDON]

When getting billed by an outside contractor, do you get charged for travel time?

Without reading the threads after the original, this is usually negotiated up-front.