Adventures in Consulting: On-Site Travel Expenses and Your Hourly Rate
If your a freelancer, chances are you'll have to work on a 'time and materials' basis on occasion. For me, that is my preferred method, because it gives me some assurance that my client won't take a fix-bid quote and 'scope creep' me into the poor house. Of course, if you can give your client a clear set of requirements and some sort of a 'cap' (not to exceed hours) then everyone has a stake in the game and it's fair for everyone. Some of the work I do requires me to be on-site. Sometimes that's just because the customer wants to see what they're paying for, but also because co-location can really help communication and project progress. If the customer is willing to pay my hourly rate + travel, then I just invoice them for actual travel costs, and they reimburse me. (Don't forget to add the per diem cost for ' meals and incidental expenses ' from the IRS.) But a little more tricky issue is what to do when the customer wants to