Time-based charges nobody is counting
Nobody wrote down when the clock started.
Some charges grow with the clock, and nobody is watching the clock.
Not every business has this problem, and some should leave it alone.
Most of these can be handled better. Whether it's worth doing is a separate question. What follows is one common form of the problem, described in general terms, because your version will differ. These are possible challenges, not a description of your business, and some should be left exactly as they are. If it sounds like your week, that's worth a conversation.
Watch: Owed, but Never Asked For
Sound familiar?
- Standby time gets mentioned, then forgotten by invoice day.
- Nobody could say when the free period ran out.
- Charges get waived because nobody counted them, not because anyone decided to.
- A customer asks for the times, and there are none.
What it looks like
Some charges grow with the clock instead of with the work. Equipment kept past the agreed days. Storage past a free period. A crew standing by because the site is not ready. A rental out longer than booked.
The agreement says the charge applies. Whether it gets billed depends on somebody noticing that the clock started, and counting how long it ran.
What it costs
Waiting often leaves no record on the job. Work produces a sheet, a photo, a signature. Standing by may be noted somewhere, in a text or a gate log, but often not where the invoice is built.
It gets counted at the end, from memory. When the invoice is built, somebody reconstructs how long it was. Without a recorded start and end, the charge is easy to miss and hard to size.
Waiving it becomes a default. Waiving a charge can be good judgment about a customer. But when the clock was never counted, the waiver is not a decision. Nobody chose it. It just happened.
It cannot be defended. If a customer asks when the extra days began, a charge with no start and end time is hard to stand behind.
Where it goes wrong
- The start is not recorded. The moment a free period ends or a crew starts waiting passes without a note.
- The allowance lives in someone's head. How many free days, and from when, is known by the person who set up the job.
- The end is not recorded either. Equipment comes back or the site opens up, and nobody notes when.
- The allowance gets checked only when a question comes up. Then whether the charge appears depends on who noticed, not on what the agreement says.
What a better version looks like
When a timed condition starts, the start is recorded with the date and time, on the job. The count runs by itself. Before an invoice goes out, every running or finished clock on that job is listed with its total, next to the agreement that allows it.
Nothing is charged automatically. The list turns an estimate from memory into a number somebody can look at and decide on.
What still needs a person
A person decides whether to bill the time or waive it, which is a decision about the customer relationship. A person confirms the times with the customer when they are questioned. And a person decides what the agreement actually allows when it is unclear.
Questions worth asking about your own operation
- Which of your charges depend on how long something took or sat?
- Where is the start time written down?
- When a charge like this is waived, who decided?
- Could you show a customer the times if they asked?
If this sounds familiar
Bring me the version you actually have. I'll learn how the process really works before I suggest anything. If it isn't worth changing, or isn't a fit for me, I'll say so. Talk through a problem