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]

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@Gabriel B wrote:

Their time tracking app has an issue when putting a computer to sleep and doing that for a long period of time. I haven't shut down my computer in 2 weeks, but I used 'sleep'.

That made the app not track time correctly (must be some internal counter that gets confused when the system clock 'skips' an interval after the PC is awoken).

I simply restarted the tracker and seems to be working correctly. Too bad I lost a couple of hours this week.

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Gabriel,

The only time the tracker has done this to me is if I go inactive for any amount of time. Then it will stop tracking. So if you were inactive for a long length of time and your computer went into sleep it was not the tracker. It was your computer and you not being active.

If you are seriously having this issue and it is not the above then you need to contact support and report it.

[#3]

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@Gabriel B wrote:

For the last couple of  days the tracker is under charging, if I may say so. Yesterday it skipped logging about 50 minutes of work altogether even though looking at the activity minute by minute there's no problem.

This morning it skipped one 10-minute interval out of the first 30 minutes.

What's a person to do? Install some bogus software to send random mouse clicks just so he has 2 minutes to think about the algorithm he'll write?

Actually that doesn't seem to be the case as there's continous activity registered anyway.

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So in essence, it doesnt work at all. Both freelancers and clients get under- or overcharged at some point? Nice.

[#4]

Online English lessons on Skype lasting 60 minutes is completely normal.  The Elance tracker clocks up the minutes and it's expected that an experienced teacher will finish on the hour.  English lessons are very expensive and when a client has budgeted an agreed amount per hour, per week, they certainly do not expect the teacher to overrun and push up the charges!

An online lesson is not a Skype conversation, Marcia, so obviously it is timed to the minute.  How else would I be ready to switch to the next person's scheduled lesson, unless I had a timetable?

[#5]

Hi all,

Although we appreciate the discussion and hearing different opinions about the Team App, we ask you to be mindful of our Communitu Guidelines and respectful towards other users and Upwork, Elance and oDesk brands.

Historically, Upwork and oDesk Team Apps have always tracked time in 10-minutes increments, so it's not something that was changed recently. I will pass your feedback about it to the team though.

Also, I am checking with the team whether the issue Gabriel shared is a known one. Gabriel, could you please submit a ticket to Support through your Team App (by clicking on your name at the bottom and selecting "Contact Support") so we receive logs from your Team App and could look if there are any issues.

Thank you!

[#6]

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@Valeria K wrote:

Hi all,

Although we appreciate the discussion and hearing different opinions about the Team App, we ask you to be mindful of our Communitu Guidelines and respectful towards other users and Upwork, Elance and oDesk brands.

Historically, Upwork and oDesk Team Apps have always tracked time in 10-minutes increments, so it's not something that was changed recently. I will pass your feedback about it to the team though.

Also, I am checking with the team whether the issue Gabriel shared is a known one. Gabriel, could you please submit a ticket to Support through your Team App (by clicking on your name at the bottom and selecting "Contact Support") so we receive logs from your Team App and could look if there are any issues.

Thank you!

---

This is the answer that I keep getting, but that isn't what I am saying, at all. My question is, whenever Upwork and odesk instituted their tracker, they decided to make it different than regular time trackers, including the one used on elance, which track in 1 minute increments. So my question is, why did they bother to make it track in 10 minute increments, instead of leaving it in 1 minute increments, like almost every other tracker out there?

If a 10-minute tracker evens things out, why not just use a 1 minute tracker, unless someone gets an advantage?

No one seems to be able, or willing, to answer that question. 🙂

[#7]

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@Cathleen C wrote:

This is the answer that I keep getting, but that isn't what I am saying, at all. My question is, whenever Upwork and odesk instituted their tracker, they decided to make it different than regular time trackers

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There is no such thing as a "regular time tracker".  You yourself acknowledged you don't track time off Upwork by the minute.  The answer you keep getting is all the answer you need.  There is no secret behavior of the time tracker that clients or freelancers need to "beware" of like the thread topic suggests.  If you (or a client) happen to not like using Upwork's time tracker, you're more than welcome to use your own by-the-minute tracker and enter it in as manual time.

[#8]

Lindy, you would interrupt a student in the middle of a question or not answer their question when you hit the 60 minute mark? I have quite a few friends who are teachers, and they would never treat a student that way.

I have taken online Skype (not language) lessons myself. Sometimes the instructor has started little late. Sometimes the previous lesson has overruns. Sometimes I have started a  little late or my lesson runs a bit long so the next lesson starts a bit late. This is life. I paid a fixed fee per lesson.

[#9]

I spotted the same thing a couple of days ago when I started freelancing. But I was fair and charged him for my real work. Upwork administration should definitely do something about this problem.

[#10]

Valeria wrote,

Historically, Upwork and oDesk Team Apps have always tracked time in 10-minutes increments, so it's not something that was changed recently. I will pass your feedback about it to the team though.

I can confirm this, I had hundreds hours with oDesk before it was Upwork, and the tracker always rounded or truncated to 10 minute intervals, so it's a surprise to me to learn that Elance tracked time to the minute. I for one would be happy if Upwork adopted the Elance approach, if only to avoid giving clients the impression they were overcharged because they don't understand the 10 minute granularity. HOWEVER, before Upwork changes the tracker, I hope they test the living daylights out of it. Neither freelancers nor clients can afford a prolonged time tracker outage or malfunction.

[#11]

Should be tracking by the minute like Elance, not in 10 minute blocks. If a client can end up getting charged for hours for no service, that's a serious problem.

[#12]

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@Shaun S wrote:

Should be tracking by the minute like Elance, not in 10 minute blocks. If a client can end up getting charged for hours for no service, that's a serious problem.

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 Then contact support, open a ticket, and express your concerns, as long as it's understood that there's no deception on the part of freelancers, who are only using the app provided by Upwork .

[#13]

I work for a healthcare company that does medical coding and billing (not as a freelancer). The company bills clients in 15 min increments so even if we get something from the client that takes 2 minutes they are billed for 15 minutes.

As other's have stated it eventually balances out because sometimes i get something that takes 21 minutes but I can only charge for 15. The clients are aware of this, it is in their contract. I am sure Upwork informs clients of this as well. This is common practice in many large companies.

[#14]

Lisa, exactly.  I've worked in the legal profession for over 20 years.  Years ago, we billed the clients in .25/ hour segments, which became reduced to .10/hour segments.  It definitely evens out and it always surprises me when the topic comes up in connection with the Upwork Time Tracker.  My off-Upwork clients get billed in .25/hour segments and no one complains.

I have current clients who need to re-bill my services to their clients.  I send them a weekly invoice in .10/hour and everybody's happy.  It's easy to find a chart to convert 10 minute segments to percentage of an hour.

[#15]

Definitely the charge needs to be by minute like every time tracker in the world and not 10 minutes rounded... imagine yourself how much money upwork is making from this mistake.

[#16]

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@lior m wrote:

Definitely the charge needs to be by minute like every time tracker in the world and not 10 minutes rounded... imagine yourself how much money upwork is making from this mistake.

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 The consensus among everyone who has extensive experience on both sides of the time tracker, as well as those who are accustomed to billing time segments in the real world, appears to be "none".

[#17]

Hi Lior,

Our team explored tracking billable time by the minute while still allowing for randomized 10-minute screenshots but found this can quickly add up to freelancers charging less time for their work. We have seen that the current Desktop App is accurately measures activity and time spent working. We’ll continue to evaluate this and other suggestions, so keep them coming.

[#18]

Today I worked for 1 hr 59 minutes and will be paid for 2 hrs 10 min. Ridiculous.

For people to just say "it all evens out in the end" is untrue. (Perhaps if they were living on a particular 'Seinfeld' episode where that always happened to Jerry, it would!) Also, to say we should go in and edit our time is not ideal.

I have a regular client who also has a tracking system of their own that I click on at the same time as (within seconds of) the Upwork one, and it has consistently 'worked' in my favour for the last few months, sometimes as much as an overcharge of a couple of hours in one week. 

Because of that, the client asked me what was going on. Only now do I finally have an answer for them. Luckily, they were not upset and weren't worried about it. That might not always be the case. 

Thanks to the originator of this thread. I believe she got it right.

Keith

[#19]

Hi everyone,

I don't understand the tracker very well, either (but from the freelancer's perspective), so I hope those of you who understand how it works can clarify.

How does it "even out eventually"?

I usually turn off my tracker on nice round numbers (X hours and 00-10-20-etc minutes).

I just now logged 20 (exactly) minutes, and the tracker took 3 screenshots in that time = 30 minutes, with one segment being 1 minute, and 2 segments being full 10 minutes. Nothing needed to be evened out, and I assumed when I work full 20 minutes, I'd be charging the client for 20 minutes. (Instead, it charged 30, so I deleted the first screenshot)

I think Petra mentioned in one post that she pays attention to the segments - how? Should I look at the time when Tracker takes the first screenshot, check how many minutes have passed (let's say X), and then make sure I turn off the tracker 10-X minutes after the last screenshot is taken?

(If yes, that's ridiculous LOL)

My "concern" here is that I turn the tracker on and off very often because I switch between tasks a lot. And then when I work exactly 20 minutes and Tracker bills that at 30 or 40, that's a problem.

I'm fine with "billing in increments", i.e. if I worked 15 minutes, I bill for 20. But that's not what's happening in my case.

Thanks!

Cheers,
Ines

[#20]

Ines, turning the tracker on and off a lot and switching is not a goodnidea, the tracker is really designed for hourly contracts (not "minutely" ones)

the time segments are 6 per hour. For example 3.00 to 3.10, 3.10 to 3.20, 3.20 to 3.30, 3.30 to 3.40 and so on. 

At some point between 3.00 and 3.10 a screenshot is taken and that makes the segment "count"

At some point between 3.10 and 3.20 a screenshot is taken and that makes the segment "count"

At some point between 3.20 and 3.30 a screenshot is taken and that makes the segment "count"

At some point between 3.30 and 3.40 a screenshot is taken and that makes the segment "count"

If you want to charge accurately always start at the beginning of one segment, for example at 3.00, 3.10, 3.20, 3,30 etc etc and finish at the end of one - at 4.00, 4.10, 4.20 etc etc

If you finish tracking during a segment before a screenshot was taken, that segment is NOT charged. So if you track until 4.08 but there hasn't been a screenshot yet between 4.00 and 4.10, that segment is neither counted nor charged.

It generally works best if you work in 1 hour or longer chunks, in fact some clients require their "many hours a week" freelancers to work in chunks of at leat one hour at a time.

[#21]

Thanks so much, Petra!

Right - I see now why it's not a good idea to work in less than 1 hr chunks.

I was used to "the old system" (E) so I figured it's enough to start and end at round numbers. Probably should have RTFM, though.

Thanks again!

Cheers,
Ines

[#22]

I'm new to Upwork and I've been trying the time tracker for the first time. If you have no knowledge of the system, then it's natural to assume that when you press start, your time is started, and when you press stop, it stops. At no point was I made aware that it works in 10 minute blocks.

I messaged my client earlier to say that I would be stopping at 1.5 hours as agreed. When the clock hit 1:30 I pressed stop. When he sees the job tomorrow, he will see 1 hour 40 minutes. This just makes me look greedy, stupid or incompetent.

My main issue is the transparency from the start. If, as a company, Upwork wants to work in 10 minute blocks then it should make this very clear to all its customers, from the time they start using the product.

When I brought up this issue with support, they said it was my responsiblity to delete blocks I thought were not fair, and it's the client's job to review all work hours and dispute ones with a small amount of activity. As if we don't have enough to do already, when all Upwork needs to do is record the time you press start and stop in their own time tracker app. They could round up or down to the nearest 10 minutes at the end of the work week and I don't think either clients or freelancers would have an issue with a couple of minutes either way in a whole week.

Yes, I understand in the professional business world, hardly anyone charges by the minute, they will charge in say 30 min, 60 min, or half/ full day blocks, but this is a time tracker and it doesn't even record the time you start and finish. What kind of time tracker can't do that? Can you imagine a system that tracks when employees arrive for work only worked in 10 minute blocks and you could turn up 9 minutes late for work every day and it would show you as being ontime?

And finally, it's depressing to see some freelancers in this thread saying that we should not be complaining about a system that might overcharge our clients. That sort of attitude, "well if they don't know then don't say anything" is not very savoury. I hope most of us freelancers want to strive to provide a fair, honest and unselfish service to our clients.

[#23]

Jan asked rhetorically, “What kind of time tracker can’t do that?”

The Upwork time tracker that’s what, and the oDesk time tracker before it. Undoubtedly thousands of freelancers at Upwork & oDesk have complained about it to no avail, so you either don’t use it or work with its limitations, and that includes manually removing short time segments when you forget to turn it in on or off at 10 minute boundaries in which case, far from overcharging clients, freelancers shortchange themselves voluntarily. I don’t drink but the AA prayer is applicable to many long standing Upwork policies (such as jobs without feedback lowering Job Success, 20% fee for the first $500 of a contract, not being able to hide earnings without paying for a plus membership... I could come up with many more policies I vehemently disagree with):

God, grant me the Serenity, to accept the things I can not change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

[#24]

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@Jan H wrote:

I'm new to Upwork and I've been trying the time tracker for the first time. If you have no knowledge of the system, then it's natural to assume that when you press start, your time is started, and when you press stop, it stops. At no point was I made aware that it works in 10 minute blocks.

I messaged my client earlier to say that I would be stopping at 1.5 hours as agreed. When the clock hit 1:30 I pressed stop. When he sees the job tomorrow, he will see 1 hour 40 minutes. This just makes me look greedy, stupid or incompetent.

My main issue is the transparency from the start. If, as a company, Upwork wants to work in 10 minute blocks then it should make this very clear to all its customers, from the time they start using the product.

When I brought up this issue with support, they said it was my responsiblity to delete blocks I thought were not fair, and it's the client's job to review all work hours and dispute ones with a small amount of activity. As if we don't have enough to do already, when all Upwork needs to do is record the time you press start and stop in their own time tracker app. They could round up or down to the nearest 10 minutes at the end of the work week and I don't think either clients or freelancers would have an issue with a couple of minutes either way in a whole week.

Yes, I understand in the professional business world, hardly anyone charges by the minute, they will charge in say 30 min, 60 min, or half/ full day blocks, but this is a time tracker and it doesn't even record the time you start and finish. What kind of time tracker can't do that? Can you imagine a system that tracks when employees arrive for work only worked in 10 minute blocks and you could turn up 9 minutes late for work every day and it would show you as being ontime?

And finally, it's depressing to see some freelancers in this thread saying that we should not be complaining about a system that might overcharge our clients. That sort of attitude, "well if they don't know then don't say anything" is not very savoury. I hope most of us freelancers want to strive to provide a fair, honest and unselfish service to our clients.

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This support article describes how the tracker works, including the 10-minute increments:

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211064098-Log-Time-with-the-Upwork-Desktop-App

Here is another support article from the client's point of view, so that you can fully understand how it functions:

https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062278-Check-your-Freelancer-s-Work-Diary

It is part of your job as a freelancer to make sure that your work diary is accurate for your clients. There's even a handy link right on the tracker to go directly to your work diary, so that you can delete any partial segments that should not be charged to the client. The tracker does not overcharge clients, the freelancer does, by not using the tool correctly.

[#25]

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@Vladimir G wrote:

Our team explored tracking billable time by the minute while still allowing for randomized 10-minute screenshots but found this can quickly add up to freelancers charging less time for their work. We have seen that the current Desktop App is accurately measures activity and time spent working. We’ll continue to evaluate this and other suggestions, so keep them coming.

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I dont understand how tracking by the minute means that freelancers charge less time for their work. Am I missing something and can someone explain?

And, I'm curious, because I don't remember if it's been discussed before, but what exactly is the problem with Upwork using a time tracker that bills by the minute (like Elance did)? Is it very difficult to create such a tool?

I'm genuinely asking here. I don't understand. I'm also a little tired because for 3 years now, I've had to review the daily work diaries of all my active hourly contracts to make sure that I'm not "overcharging," that the activity levels are decent, etc. 

Maybe that's not a big deal for some, but that time wasted adds up...

[#26]

I would also prefer a time tracker tracking by the minute. I'm not a big fan of the ten minutes window. I can live with it, but I don't like it.