Charging for attending meetings.

[jmds]

Hi all,

I hope all is well with everybody here and you are all working hard (but not to hard). I do not get on here very often these days because I always seem to busy.

Now to my question. I have been asked to attend a meeting with a new client to discuss a project and they want to know how much I will be chargin for attending the meeting. Now, the majority of my work comes via the intenet from overseas clients. So meetings are usually very short and on the telephone.

I need to know if I can charge for travelling time? (their office is about an hour away).

 

[Peter Bowen]

Hi John,

The short answer is that you can charge for anything they're prepared to pay for.

But, they probably want to protect themselves against a nasty surprise bill just for discussing the project. A lawyer I used once told me - let me listen until I know what you want, then I'll tell you that I'm going to start charging.

Cheers

Pete

 

[fridayteam]

Let me listen until I know what you want, then I'll tell you that I'm going to start charging.

Thanks for sharing this. I really like it.

 

[Chris Kaday]

Yes clients like no surprise fees. Maybe time to set out your fee structure including meeting and travel time charging Chris

 

[bwglaw]

Agree, you need to discuss this with the client and get their agreement to your terms. We charge 50% of our hourly rate as travel time over 30 minutes and always put this to the client before we undertake any travel

 

[Cornish Steve]

It depends on the terms and conditions of your contract. In the context of a project (and not a sales call), you can certainly charge for reasonable expenses plus maybe 5% for processing. For your time, use your own good judgment. Is this a fixed price contract or Time & Materials? Personally, if it's a one-off meeting, I would waive any charges for my time - especially if it's a new customer.

 

In my line of work all initial meetings, etc are free of charge. If I tried to charge for them, then I would just not get through the door.

In your case, charge what you think is reasonable, and communicate this to the client. Look at it from their point of view - does it seem reasonable still?

 

[jmds]

Hi All,

Thank you all, I appreciate you all taking the time out the reply.

 

charge for your travel expenses, and a half day for the meeting, whatever you would normally pay yourself for this time.