learjet,
no offense, but that is why i personnaly hate T&M. We found that once we started to flat rate everything, it made our life easier. Now instead of earning 4 and billing 8 (we've been there -still are on occasion -getting rare though) we found that we can flat rate the call and cover our travel.
in regards to commercial, it took a while, but we just started by billing 2 hr min, then we got them used to a min charge, then we just switched over to flat tcall charge. once we got there, if there was work beyond the scope, we would just let them know what it would be and do it.
it wasn't easy, but we had a lot of good customers going back 20 yrs that trusted us. also it helped that we were growing and I could sell them on the fact that not all of my men worked at the same speed as I did, so it would be better for the customer.
it's been pretty successful. A couple of T&M holdouts, but they pay travel w/o complaint and we make it up on their new projects.
good luck.
