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I have a client with whom my hours are capped at 20 hours a week. This client is not timely at all, neither with giving me access I need nor with responding to emails. Last week, this left me only able to bill 13.5 hours because I was waiting so long for access (and I still don't have all the access I need). I've also been waiting 1.5 days for a crucial email response that is preventing me from starting new tasks.

This so far is severely impacting my hours forecasting moving forward.

Is it ethical to bill for hours waiting?

user1521620
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J.S.Orris
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    Some people just want to down/close vote everything, don't pay too much attention to it. Also it is generally a good idea to wait at least few hours (usually 24) before accepting an answer to invite broader array of answers. – Aida Paul Sep 01 '20 at 15:02
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    What does your contract with the client say regarding billable hours? – sf02 Sep 01 '20 at 15:34
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    @sf02 Nothing specific regarding wait times. Again, haven't encountered such delays with previous clients. Therefore, didn't include a min hours clause (which I will do moving forward). New projects always present something new to learn. – J.S.Orris Sep 01 '20 at 16:28
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    Bear in mind that the ethical dimension may separate from the practical one here. As you have accepted a simple "yes it is ethical" answer, you may want to consider whether your relationship with the client would be affected when you present them with a bill for days of waiting. Some clients won't even notice, some clients will understand and be fine with it, some clients will not like it, and may contest the bill, or even terminate the contract. These issues can be independent on your own feelings of whether billing for time spent waiting in any specific case is ethical. – Neil Slater Sep 02 '20 at 08:06
  • You have marked an answer as accepted pretty quickly. Usually it's better to wait a little while before doing that, to encourage more answers (for example the minimum for self-answers is 2 days). And there actually are two other answers here, both of which have more votes than the accepted one. You can of course decide however you want, but the community seems to agree more with the opposite of what you accepted (and seem to plan to do). – Fabian Röling Sep 02 '20 at 10:11
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    US labor law distinguishes between waiting to be engaged and being engaged to wait. A labor attorney might be helpful in understanding the distinction, and which case applies here. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/hoursworked/screenER78.asp –  Sep 02 '20 at 14:13
  • @Sycorax What you presented is only relevant to "employees" not contractors. – J.S.Orris Sep 02 '20 at 14:50
  • @FabianRöling I have unmarked the accepted answer to get more insight on this topic. – J.S.Orris Sep 02 '20 at 14:53
  • It's not fully clear what the situation is. What are you "hours waiting"? Do you mean the total time elapsed from when you're available until when you have what you need to proceed, regardless of whether this is time that you are prevented from engaging in other activities? – Acccumulation Sep 02 '20 at 22:15
  • How about putting that company's task on the shelf and spend the day working on another contract? – Harper - Reinstate Monica Sep 04 '20 at 03:27

4 Answers4

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Is it ethical to bill for hours waiting?

Broadly speaking - no.

You can and should bill for the time spent verifying that the access is broken, the communication around trying to get the access, but if you are not doing work for the client, you can't bill for it. There are some exceptions around it, for example if you are physically waiting for someone to come down and open the doors for you (when on client premises) - that would generally count as billable time as you are physically restricted from taking on different tasks and already on client's time.

But as this is a remote arrangement you are not facing such issues, and you can easily switch context to another activity after verifying that access is not there.

On a side note, and a lesson, beside agreeing to a hourly cap, make sure to also get minimums into your contract. This way they are motivated to get you up and running, as whether they do, or not, you are going to be paid for the minimums.

Aida Paul
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    The reason I ask this is bc when I was on FED contracts awaiting interim clearances, I was told to bill this time. – J.S.Orris Sep 01 '20 at 14:47
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    @Squ1rr3lz May want to go back to the FED contracts then, sounds like a gravy train to me! – Aida Paul Sep 01 '20 at 14:47
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    I completely agree with a "minimum" clause. First thing I thought of after experiencing this. – J.S.Orris Sep 01 '20 at 14:51
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    @Squ1rr3lz Minimums, getting downpaymens up front and always having more than 1 client are about the most important 101 contracting lessons. – Aida Paul Sep 01 '20 at 14:53
  • You are correct. I am awaiting on a previous client to renew a contract; meeting this Friday regarding it. I generally do get a down payment. However, I usually only do this if I feel risk is high (usually startups). This particular client is an established SaaS company so didn't feel a 25%-50% down payment was necessary. – J.S.Orris Sep 01 '20 at 14:56
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    @Squ1rr3lz Now you know better! :D – Aida Paul Sep 01 '20 at 14:56
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    As @TymoteuszPaul said, you cannot bill for time you had a chance of doing something else. Waiting on remote access to be provided is not billable time unless it is ah-hoc and it should be provided in a short while. For example: getting a phone call from a IT department and waiting on the line with the tech for the access is billable, getting an email saying that access should be available on a particular day and time, only the valdiation is billable in case access isn't there – Strader Sep 01 '20 at 17:39
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    I agree with this overall, but want to highlight that "time spent verifying the access is broken" may be more substantial than initially apparent. Are you emailing the client to inquire about delays? Adjusting project estimates to account for inability to log in? You should not bill all day Tuesday because no one replied to your Monday email, but any time devoted to this client should be treated as billable, unless you have an agreement otherwise. Don't feel like you have to do free work just to follow-up! :) – Alex Sep 02 '20 at 03:46
  • @Squ1rr3lz Were you not expected to be "at work" and theoretically working on something for the contract (even if only research, background study, attending meetings) during that time? – user3067860 Sep 02 '20 at 14:47
  • @user3067860 I have been given specific tasks to be completed. I'm an expert in my field and no research is necessary. The only thing that I would need to overview and I guess in other research is their data models and data needed to complete my tasks. In which I STILL don't have access. – J.S.Orris Sep 02 '20 at 14:49
  • @Squ1rr3lz I meant when you billed for that time on a federal contract. Our new folks may be "waiting for access" but we generally find lots of other work for them to do. But if you don't have anything that you can do (research, etc.) without access, then you don't have anything to bill for. – user3067860 Sep 02 '20 at 14:59
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    "easily switch context to another activity" - I beg to differ. Sometimes you break from the context because client was calling and then you want to get back on the task but you had so much information loaded in your brain that is now partially or completelly lost because of changing focus. – hocikto Sep 04 '20 at 07:34
  • I think @Alex gave the right answer here. No, you can't bill for time you're not working, but when you're working remotely, you're spending time logging on, checking access, reviewing mails for any response as to why access isn't working, recalculating/rescheduling any tasks reliant on the access, and sending an update to the client noting that no progress has been made because required access isn't in place. All that is billable, and making it visible to the client that you're still checking in every day but are at a standstill because you're missing critical access can be very effective. – timbstoke Sep 04 '20 at 15:05
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In a nutshell... if your waiting prohibits you from performing billable work for other clients or prohibits you from pursuing other activities, whatever they may be, then you should bill for it. Otherwise, no.

joeqwerty
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    This is the best answer. If you are losing out on business opportunities because a client is stringing you along, then, most certainly, that client needs to be billed. – Haris Sep 02 '20 at 12:44
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    Also consider max 20h/week cap: You are kind of expected to have at least another job of a similar magnitude at hand (otherwise you're underemployed). How you structure that is your business (and/or you have to work out with all clients).

    I'd chalk this up to "remember to put this issue into next contract". Because you can get a "min 10h, max 20h per week" clause in for example.

     – user3445853 Sep 02 '20 at 13:58
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    I would agree with this interpretation. I further suggest that any new contracts with the client contain a clause stating this interpretation, for the avoidance of doubt that excessively slow responses to information/access requests may incur costs. Also note that even if you have other pending work you can progress with the time right now (so the situation isn't really imposing an immediate opportunity cost), the hours you may need to work for this client in the future may stop you being able to allocated time to other projects in a future billing period. – David Spillett Sep 02 '20 at 14:08
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    @Haris It depends on how direct it is. If it's simply an issue of not taking on other clients out of concern that, if this client were to start requiring 20 hours/week, the OP wouldn't have time for the new client, that doesn't justify billing hours (although it would be a reason to word the contract to allow billing hours in such a circumstance). – Acccumulation Sep 02 '20 at 22:12
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It certainly is ethical. When you are billing for work, you are not billing for work performed, you are billing for hours spent. When you are working and waiting for access, those are hours you're not doing something else, like spending time with your family, pursuing hobbies, eating, traveling, etc., things which you want to do. Since you are prevented from doing things you want to do with your time, your time is still being used even if you are not being productive with it. Therefore it is totally ethical to ask the client to pay for that time.

Ertai87
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If the client didn't agree to it, then it's not ethical to charge them for it. What this comes down to is the client is effectively presenting you with only 13.5 hours of demand. This decrease is due to them making less work possible rather than explicitly telling you that there's less work that they want you to do, but it ends up with the same effect. So ultimately, your complaint comes down to a client not assigning you as much work as you want, and you wanting to bill them for how much you wanted to work for them, rather than how much work they presented you with. You say this affects your ability to forecast revenue, and that raises the question of just who should bear this burden.

Variations in demand is a common phenomenon. Just who absorbs that variation depends on the relationship. In an employer-employee relationship, the employer absorbs the variation; if there are times of days where a supermarket has half the customers, they don't pay their employees half the hourly rate. With a customer-vendor relationship, the vendor absorbs the variation; if a hotel has a period of low vacancy, it doesn't send its previous customers a bill for the unused rooms.

Relationships between clients and contractors exist on a spectrum between these two extremes, and you need to figure out where you want to be on that spectrum, communicate that to your clients, and get them to agree. There are trade-offs to this decision. Part of the reason that the nominal rates of contractors tend to be greater than those of employees is that the costs of this variation is priced into their rates. In your own words, this client is paying a "fairly lucrative rate". Asking your clients to pay lucrative rates and expecting them to pick up the tab when demand goes down is double dipping. If you want a more regular income stream, you need to work out how to put conditions in your contracts to achieve that, and be prepared for the amount you can charge to decrease.

Acccumulation
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  • "if there are times of days where a supermarket has half the customers, they don't pay their employees half the hourly rate." Legally they can't do that, but they can, and do, cut hours, which is basically the same thing happening here. – barbecue Sep 03 '20 at 00:11
  • @barbecue: This is highly variable, depending on local labor laws. In most developed countries (e.g. countries with "real" labor laws), worker protection rules implies that an employer cannot reduce pay without the worker's agreement (and, most of the time, the union's agreement). Neither by reducing rates nor by reducing hours paid (excluding small variations made possible by law or negotiated with unions). – tricasse Sep 03 '20 at 13:36
  • @Accumulation To clarify. The demand is there and have a backlog of task items to complete. The client team keeps having meetings to discuss my access. Basically they are trying to limit license costs and keep discussing workarounds around this. In short, there are no workarounds and it is severely impacting me. – J.S.Orris Sep 03 '20 at 15:35
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    @Squ1rr3lz If the tasks are in the backlog but the client hasn't given you the means to complete them, then the demand is not there. If my car needs repairs but I don't have time to get it repaired until tomorrow, then there is no demand for my car to be repaired today. – Tanner Swett Sep 03 '20 at 17:42
  • @tricasse 1. supermarket employees are rarely unionized. 2. barbecue wasn't speaking of "reducing hours paid", i.e., paying for fewer hours than were worked, but rather of scheduling fewer hours of labor - supermarket employees tend to be part-time and get highly variable schedules, with the days, times of day, and lengths of shifts being different from one week to the next. – Dan Henderson Sep 03 '20 at 18:30
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    @DanHenderson: That's also what I understood from @ barbecue ("cut hours"). Supermarket employees are rarely unionized in the US. It's different in other developed countries, that have a lot of limitations on schedule variability (and where unions work very differently from the US). – tricasse Sep 03 '20 at 22:20
  • @DanHanderson: Supermarket employees are rarely unionized? Do you talk about a specific country? In Europe, they are useually (why wouldn't they?) – guest Sep 04 '20 at 09:28
  • Good point, I was speaking from a US perspective. I imagine barbecue was, as well. – Dan Henderson Sep 10 '20 at 15:05