Beware clients: time tracker is over charging you... like crazy!

[#1]

Ok... so this is what happened. I just started my first hourly contract on Upwork (I just migrated here from Elance) so it was my first time using the tracker.

Yesterday I could see that on the real time tracker (the top part) it showed 5 minutes but below (total time for the day) it already showed 20 minutes. And believe me, I was very aware I had started 5 minutes ago...

Today I started working and I had been working for 29 minutes, when it already showed 40. So I contacted customer support. Their answer is that it charges in 10 minutes blocks, which would make sense... but there is a trick.

If you start at 11:59... you would believe it will charge another 10 minutes at: 12:09... but it doesn't! It does not track 10 minutes blocks in real time. It takes 10 minutes blocks by the clock... but this I mean:

If you start at 11:59 it already charges you 10 minutes for the block corresponding to 11:50 to 12 PM. And if you click Stop at 12:01 it charges you another 10 minutes for the block corresponding to 12:00 to 12:10... so you end up paying for 20 minutes instead of 3.

Now imagine if that happens 3 times in a day, you are already paying 1 extra hour. Now what if some one does that (not necessarily on purpose) more than 3 times a day? Which is possible...

After a long discussion, this is customer service's conclusion (literal): "It shouldn't be a big different in the time."

For you!! Because you don't have to pay for it. Imagine what this means for freelancers with the highest hourly rates!!

Also multipy this for every freelancer in the platform, working around the globe, 24/7.... it's a lot of money!!! that goes to automatic payment!

Needless to say: I have never and I'll never over-charge a client, so I'll talk to him about not using the tracker... But this is crazy!!! I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry....

[#2]

Hi Solange,

Thank you for your feedback about the time-tracking. It is correct that the Team App records time in 10-minute segments. The screenshots are taken at random time during those segments which means that sometimes the freelancer starts the tracker in the end of a segment (at 11:59 for example), the screenshot is taken and the segment is recorded. However, it also means that often the freelancer stops tracking before the screenshot is taken and the segment is recorded. Generally it evens out.

What I often do is remove screenshots with very low activity levels when I review my Work Diary.

[#3]

Hi Valeria,

Thank you for your comment, and I completely understand what you mean.

But I don't think you can say that "Generally it evens out", I don't see any statistics or calculations supporting that.  In my case the only two times I used it, it ended up overcharging the client, multiply that for the many freelancers with the same case. And we're talking about a system that should be very VERY transparent since this goes to automatic billing.

And I definetly don't think it's up to the freelancer to go the Diary, make the math and clean the Diary as necessary by deleting screen shots.

At least to me, it gave  me a lot to think, since I have never seen a tracker like this (I'm not sure how it was on ODesk) but on Elance, 1 minute was minute and so on... You're not suppose to gamble with the freelancers time... it might come even... it might not...

And since they clearly could have make the tracker track (I apologize for the redudancy) real time, I must conclude this was part of the math and the intention... 

[#4]

It's in UpWork's best interest to keep these 10 minute segments because they get a percentage of all the time logged in by the freelancers. If a freelancer benefits from overcharging the client, so does UpWork. I wonder if this practice amouts to a systemic overcharging, and if clients have a claim. 

[#5]

There is no over charging.  It all levels out.  
Start at the beginning of a ten minute segment.  I have been here for over five years and never had a client complain about the time tracking.  If someone knew exactly when a screenshot was going to be taken it would be open for abuse.  The time tracker works as it should.  

[#6]

 I'm a client and I'm complaining!

[#7]

Hi Solange,

I believe you are 100% correct. I also agree that it does not even out over time. If you have a freelancer that consistently starts each tracked worked period 'on the nines', I would have trust issues and mention it right away. Not all freelancers are honest, believe me. I have busted a few over the years.

Cheers,

Jay

[#8]

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@Jay B wrote:

Hi Solange,

I believe you are 100% correct. I also agree that it does not even out over time. If you have a freelancer that consistently starts each tracked worked period 'on the nines', I would have trust issues and mention it right away. Not all freelancers are honest, believe me. I have busted a few over the years.

Cheers,

Jay

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Again, this is the freelancer, not the software.

Also, you do realize that the original post in this thread is from two years ago?

[#9]

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@Jay B wrote:

Hi Solange,

I believe you are 100% correct. I also agree that it does not even out over time. If you have a freelancer that consistently starts each tracked worked period 'on the nines', I would have trust issues and mention it right away. Not all freelancers are honest, believe me. I have busted a few over the years.

Cheers,

Jay

---

 A freelancer who consistently started "on the nines" would not get credit for the vast majority of those segments, since in most instances there would be no screen shot taken in the last minute of a segment.

[#10]

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@Tiffany S wrote:

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@Jay B wrote:

I believe you are 100% correct. I also agree that it does not even out over time. If you have a freelancer that consistently starts each tracked worked period 'on the nines',

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 A freelancer who consistently started "on the nines" would not get credit for the vast majority of those segments, since in most instances there would be no screen shot taken in the last minute of a segment.

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 That's a common misconception.

The tracker will take a screenshot in any 10 minute segment with activity provided the freelancer started tracking before the end of the segment. If someone starts tracking at XX.X9 there will be a screenshot with one bar of activity.

[#11]

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@Petra R wrote:

That's a common misconception.

The tracker will take a screenshot in any 10 minute segment with activity provided the freelancer started tracking before the end of the segment. If someone starts tracking at XX.X9 there will be a screenshot with one bar of activity.

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This has not been my experience. I've started on :08 and :09 and not gotten a screenshot for that segment before :00.

[#12]

I use to edit the time slots that have low activity. Anyways, in some contracts, time is shown at little activity levels but the freelancer is using the timeslot to do a call related to the work, to do calculations in paper, or simply forgot to activate the tracking before.

What I consider a money leak for the clients is that, at least for me, is not possible to delete idle time slots once the client has paused the contract.

[#13]

Solange,

The tracker bills in increments of 10 minutes, so if you logged in and logged out in 5 minutes the client is still billed for 10 minutes. The extra time you saw was most likely for hours you worked yesterday as the tracker bills on UTC time.

You should have an option to view it as your time or UTC which you will find the hours correct if you check your time.

It generally balances out as it takes screenshots every so often and if you log out before it takes a screenshot you may get 5 minutes for 8 minutes.

Opps I see that Valeria answered you at the same time I posted. I came back in to edit a fix.

[#14]

Hi Suzanne,

Thank you for your comments, but that was not the case.

It took a screen shot at: 4:49 Pm and charged 10 minutes and another one at 4:51 PM for another 10 minutes, so my client was charged 20 minutes for 5 minutes (I know that adds up to 3 minutes, but I monitored the tracker and it was 5 minutes total)

Also, no, the time showing did not belong to any other day since I made sure to check the details before talking to customer service and I was monitoring the tracker work live. I do not have that much time difference with UTC and I work normal office hours, so no way hours can cross for one day to the other.

It did not balance anything... and after talking to customer support, how the software tracks time is clear. 

I just cannot believe the unnecessary lack of transparency for the client.

[#15]

Personally I have never had a client question it which tells me it evens out.  I just delete segments with low activity levels.  Normally your first screen shot is going to be a low activity level as it is taken almost immediately.  You delete the first one and you have already gotten rid of  the first 10 minutes or if you stop the time tracker in the middle of a 10 minute segment it will more than likely be a low activity level.  Delete that one and there's a total of 20 minutes.  I don't see where a client is being cheated.  

[#16]

Hi Katrina,

Thank you for sharing your opinion.

Basically the problem is that if I hadn't realized about the difference, just in 2 days my client would have paid 40 minutes extra. 

Considering every tracker works by the minute, not only on freelance platforms but on PM systems, I don't see how it makes sense to make the software track the time like this. Also, I don't think I need to go into the Diary weekly and start cleaning up screen shots...

You do it, which is great. How many users might not even realized they needed to clean them? I don't think a client of mine would have complained either, they might just think I'm slower than I really am... so if I did something in 15 minutes, I did it in 15 minutes, not 20, not 30, and so on.... 

All I know is my client is very grateful I let him know this was the situation...

[#17]

This is why I do manual time...so the client knows exactly how much they're being charged once we both agree on a fee.  From there I clock my time accordingly.

[#18]

The system makes sense because if the screenshots were at regular intervals, a freelancer could do no work and just make one mouse click exactly every 10 minutes.

Also, the client can see your activity levels, and if they feel that it is too low for some 10 minute segments, they can question it.

[#19]

Hi Marcia,

Thank you for your comments. 

No, it does not necessarily make sense. How it tracks the time is not directly related to the block of time. Many trackers, including the one on Elance, record real time not in blocks and it still takes random screen shots. They also record keystrokes independently of the time and the screen shots.

Also I don't see how under these conditions a client could question a block, if I worked 5 minutes and I get a call and I decide to Stop (with this system you cannot Pause, which you can do with 90% of trackers) it will record them, and even if 5 minutes do not make me any money, I don't have to delete them.  It should show 5 minutes, simple as that...

That is how most trackers work... so I fail to see why they can't do the same. Well, considering how the site is working, I stand corrected...

[#20]

It does actually even out, as it will not count your last segment unless a screenshot has been taken. So if you work to 10.27, and the last screenshot was at 10.15, the 10 20 - 10.30 segment is not charged.

I am a little funny about my work diary, so I always start at X.X0 so my first segment is always a full 10 minutes.

I check my work diaries at the end of each day and any "last" screenshots with less than 5 green bars I usually remove.

I like nice full neat blocks.

[#21]

Solange,

I suppose what I meant when I stated it evens out is that there are many times I log in for less then 10 minutes to take care of a call. Many times the tracker only does a screenshot once and if I run over that 10 minutes it does not credit me for the next block of time unless I sit and wait for the next screenshot. So I guess since most of my clients which I have had are long term clients on Upwork and are well aware of how the tracker works, it balances out. 

Many times I will be short a few minutes and the next time I gain a minute or two, but in the end my hours are about the same as they would be if I ran a regular time.

Most people do not bill on the minute if they are doing work like I do off of Upwork. the bill in incremental time blocks. But yes in an ideal world we would bill by the minute.

The only bad part about someone mentioning they bill manually is that it is not guaranteed. If you have a client which is long term I suppose it would not be something you would worry about, but with a new client you don't know about manual time is not guaranteed under the Upwork hourly guarantee.

If you are concerned that your client would be upset perhaps you could let them know it is billed the way it is. I always remove something if I dont think it needs to be in the hours or stop the tracker if I have something to do. 

One thing is if you are inactive for any length of time the tracker will stop tracking your hours.

[#22]

re: "But yes in an ideal world we would bill by the minute."

Yes, that would be ideal.

Or at the very least, properly log time by the minute.

And if time can be logged by the minute, billing could be done by the minute.

[#23]

Hi Suzanne,

I know people here are tired of comparissons with Elance, but maybe I'm just frustrated about how obsolete and updated this tracker is.

I'm not asking for something new. I'm saying that there are trackers, and have been for a while, which just record real time by the minute, you can pause, they take random screen shots and they record keystrokes.

I'm not even clear on what low level of activity means... what if I'm talking on Skype? I have clients in different  platforms and outside platforms, and I manage many projects at the same time... so I'm just used to click Play- Pause and that's it. If you called me on Skype, it's play... if it was 30 minutes, great, if it was 7 minutes then they go in there too. But it is not about the money... it's about the fact that I cannot worry, about what time it is, how long its been, or first check what you need and then decide whether I need the tracker... and I definitely won't go to the work diary to clean it up. 

On Elance the only times I went to the diary were if for some reason I forgot to turn off the tracker... but nothing more. I never even checked the Work Views.

And I'm not sure whether it's allowed to post screen shots here, so I won't, but it's like I said: "It took a screen shot at: 4:49 Pm and charged 10 minutes and another one at 4:51 PM for another 10 minutes, so my client was charged 20 minutes for 5 minutes (I know that adds up to 3 minutes, but I monitored the tracker and it was 5 minutes total)"

So it did not even anything automatically, it still shows like that. And I cannot believe the solution is going in there, doing the math and cleaning it manually (of course I just went ahead and worked 15 minutes without recording). All I'm saying is, it's completely obsolete.

I don't have a minimum for my clients, which is a great advantage for them but that also means that Yes, I charge by the minute. But when you have 18 projects, you just track everything, or you might go crazy...

So I understand how it works, I still think it's outdated and not a good option for the clients. 

[#24]

In following this thread, I'm amazed at how much I have learned about UpWork through people complaining on this forum.  So first, thanks for that.  Much more interesting that reading help files!

I had absolutely NO idea the tracker didn't track actual time.   Whoodda thunk? I'm not sure I care either way.  Seems close enough to me.  If I were an employee, surely I'd have a coffee break, lunch breaks, come in a little early sometimes, come in a little late sometimes, stay a little late sometimes, knock off early sometimes.  Salaried employees are afforded this luxury of flexibility.  I'm not equating freelancers with employees, only pointing out that there is a limit as to exactly how intricately this needs to be tracked.  

To me, it seems like a satistical probability that it would be in your favor (the time you worked if less than ten minutes during the first ten minute block) as much as it would be in your client's favor (if you worked any time before the screenshot during the last ten minute block).  It is bound to short the providers a few minutes at times, and short clients sometimes by some small margin of error--over the course of an entire project, MOST of it would even out and the few minutes that didn't would be acceptable to me either as the provider or as the client, assuming I've understood the rather thorough explanation provided.

Either way, it's good to know how it works!

[#25]

when using the time tracker, I always begin when the times ends with a 0 and stop it when its at 9

So if begun at '3;00 I can stop qt 3:09