ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area billable hrs

As good as the system is,billable hours efficiency has a lot of boobytraps.
What do you think about it?

can you explain in a little more detail what it is?

What it means is, if you are doing service work, then, if you do a 2 hour job, you need to charge a half day rate, if you anything over 4 hours you need to charge your day rate, if you charge by the hour you will continue to loose money, that can not be recovered.

well that's one side of the coin.
you don t have to charge 1/2 or full days ,as long as you charge what ever it takes to service the customer,do the job right and cover the expenses,make a profit etc.
however what happens to the electrician who is dispatched and not in charge of the type of calls,the driving distance,the quality of the calls etc etc?
what if you dispatched to jobs where the driving time already exceeds the time you will bill as billable hr?
what about the efficiency in this case?

At a minimum, we charge one-way driving-time (from a central point in case we happen to be an unusually far distance at the previous job).

With the recent gas-price hike, we're starting to get an extra $10 for the first hour, unless it's an all-day job, which covers driving time.

My ideal service call is 2 differet customers 5 minutes apart, half an hour each way, charge both round trip travel. Sears service are good at this minimum charge are a couple of other people I know in the service biz. I worked for a service compay that were experts in this, they had trucks out in each direction every day on some scheduled work and they picked up service. They could respond in good time. We had guys making 50 billable hrs in 40 on a regular basis.

[This message has been edited by sberry27 (edited 09-06-2005).]

At an employer in the past I was always doing service work where I was billed out at 12 hrs a day and more. Minimum charges need to happen or you will lose money. I don't like the idea of telling a customer I charge a minimum 2 or 3 hrs better to use a service charge figure your happy with and go that route.

...if you are doing service work, then, if you do a 2 hour job, you need to charge a half day rate, if you anything over 4 hours you need to charge your day rate...

I agree but I think this should kick in after a T&M job time runs beyond the 2 hours. For example, under 2 hours the customer pays the usual minimum service call charge (or trip charge or travel time) which covers the first hour then a per hour rate for the second hour. If the job takes longer than 2 hours the customer has bought a half day, more than 4 hours a full day.

Reason being that if you are on the job for say 6 hours, between travel time, lunch etc. the day is shot and the customer should be billed for it.

-Hal

well thanx 4 all the input
and of course we need to go where the work is.
the company i am with dispatches from home if possible to the nearest areas and is trying like that to keep the driving time down
long distances to jobs are sure efficiency killers and sometimes the drivetime only exceeds the revenue in billable time
so should there be a charge for that drive time or should the tech get some compensation for extended territory service and who is paying for it.
kinda hart to tell the customer ..as hard for the tech to eat it.
any suggestions?

Copper,

Does your company pay you all travel time?

Where I work I dont get paid until I arrive at the first job and my day ends when I leave the last job?

What do you mean "Eat it"

[This message has been edited by Zaney (edited 09-09-2005).]