Is there any freelancers on here who needs to charge travel and expenses (fuel, tolls, over night accommodation etc.), or maybe someone that is involved in having to pay the above, what do you consider to be standard please?
I use a formula (below) I have used for the last 7 years and, except from the obvious question back from a client here and there, its been generally accepted by the vast majority. This year though (for work in 2020 / 21), we've had 2 clients who just won't accept it in any way. We've explained that it may be best to find someone closer, but they're still coming back asking for justification for this and that. Had an email back this morning for a job in 2021, who wants to pay the rate that flights costing for the same days in 2019 as, in his words "air fares are pretty solid"??? But he still hasn't considered the €140 it costs to get to and from the airport this end, and travel to the venue from the destination airport that end (65 km! and would probably involve a hire car).
Example -
50 centimes per kilometre for every km over 40 km from our front door. (To cover fuel, tolls, over night accommodation and time spent in transit)
The venue is 626 km from us, so the travel quote is €580.
The overnight fee is €120, and is intended to cover accommodation and food.
How does the above sound?
Cheers
*Edit - not looking for your personal figures, just if ours are about right
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Comments
Have you set out your expenses as above, so the client can fully understand ?
PS what sort of work are you doing, I presumed you worked locally ?
At the moment I believe the mileage rate is somewhere around £0.75/mile to site, then the agreed hourly rate around £45/hour for travelling to site and work on site (or if applicable agreed overtime rates, may be charged). That’s the easy bit, then comes the argument over travel home, some will pay it, some won’t as they reckon we could be doing a second job on the way home, so we tend to charge a set fee of around £100 to get home, very occasionally we win, mostly we lose. As for hotel and meals if required we send them the bill and request payment, but we limit the bill to hotel cost plus £25 to cover food, no alcoholic drinks are charged as in theory if you are working or driving then you can’t drink.
we don’t normally fly as we need some specialist tools, but if we did, then it would the airfare would be charged at cost, with travel costs charged at the contractual rate.
Sorry it’s a long complicated answer. Justification can be given by working out your costs of the van, petrol, insurance, tax etc, similar with your labour costs. Hope it helps
The ones suggesting air fares are "solid" are clearly mad/stupid. Quote them current fare with the caveat that if it's more at the time, they pay the extra.
It's actually for my Mrs' business (wedding hair and makeup artist), but I'm involved in helping with the admin (I know, don't laugh, every email I write is checked and checked again for spelling and grammar) I also drive her to jobs, designed her website and calculate the prices. as she struggles with all that kind of stuff.
The expenses are clearly stated, as above, on tbe Price List and when we email the final quotes, it is all broke down, showing professional fees, expenses and the deduction of deposits paid.
She is quite sort after @Algarveaddick, she was booked to work on Princess Eugenie last week, at the wedding of her brother in law, but there was a mix up their end and it didn't happen. She did get to meet her though... Yeah, regarding the accommodation slip up, was writing post while keeping eye on the dogs this morning and was trying to squeeze it all in. We deffo didn't include that on the breakdown we sent last night. Just checked 😅
Everybody's happy.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/813165/JSP_752_v39_July_2019_Final.pdf#page353
The document I was looking for was a govt doc that sets a per diet rate for all/most countries. You’d still need to add your flights and to/from airport travel to it but it then gives a standard rate for hotel/breakfast and a per diem for other meals and costs, I know I have the link somewhere but can5 find it at present
Tend to work by the rule of thumb that anything 50% over the market rate is starting to take the piss.
But anyone who expects a business to take the cheapest option is unrealistic unless you made it a term of the engagement.
Time is money and the cheaper forms of travel are usually the most time consuming
I've offered to fly indirect before but say the time wasted will be charged at usual rate. Every time they have come back and agreed to the more expensive yet quicker flight