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acad5bb6
Community Member

Manual time added in error?

Hello! I had a freelancer add manual time to a job that was way more than he should have needed to do the job. I brought it to his attention and he said he didn't know how that got added. It was a mistake. (Charged me for 4 hours instead 1.5) Is it possible that this could be a mistake nothing to do with him? I have to say I'm having some doubts and trust issues. Thanks!

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Sarah:

It is entirely possible that the freelancer intentionally added 4 hours of time manually, and then when you asked her about it, she claimed ignorance.

 

It is also possible for a freelancer to add time to the wrong contract if she is really not paying attention.

 

It is possible for a freelancer to add the wrong amount of time if she is really not paying attention.

 

The user interface is not really complicated, but if a freelancer navigates to the work diary page and then more or less randomly clicks on things, it is theoretically possible for a freelancer to "accidentally" do things.

 

It is unlikely. But it possible.

 

Carelessness or a lack of attention to detail while using the work diary interface COULD result in a freelancer recording time in the wrong place, or the wrong amount of time.

 

What if the freelancer logged 4 hours of time, and did not want to argue about this amount of time when you asked her about it?

 

My recommendation is to consider a freelancer's work as a whole, and not make decisions based purely on the work diary.

 

If you have 5 freelancers working for you, and one of them is clearly the best worker who provides you with the best value and helps your company the most, then it may make sense for a client to continue working with that freelancer even if things in that freelancer's work diary seem confusing.

 

On the other hand, if there is a freelancer whose work diary seems rock solid and has nothing suspicious, but that freelancer's work is problematic and you don't think it is worthwhile to have her on the team... Then you can close the contract on such a freelancer. You don't need to point to the work diary in order to fire somebody.

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8 REPLIES 8
wlyonsatl
Community Member

You are not obligated under Upwork's rules to approve any or all of the manual hours added by a freelancer.

 

You can prevent a freelancer from adding manual hours on any project by not "allowing" manual hours.

Good to know! My question is though- could they have been added accidentally? I feel it is a trust issue here. 

He said, "I am just check my work diary. I am spend around 1:30 minutes.
I am not sure how it comes 3:50
let me refund you those hours. I will refund you within 72 hours when it appears to my Upwork diary.
Sorry about that."

sam-sly
Community Member


Sarah R wrote:

Good to know! My question is though- could they have been added accidentally? I feel it is a trust issue here. 

He said, "I am just check my work diary. I am spend around 1:30 minutes.
I am not sure how it comes 3:50
let me refund you those hours. I will refund you within 72 hours when it appears to my Upwork diary.
Sorry about that."


I think it is possible that the freelancer accidentally entered the hours. For one, the default is UTC (GMT) and if the freelancer is in another time zone they might get confused. (Though there are apps that make it easy like Time Buddy). But, I think that kind of error should only be a wrong time or date error, not the wrong number of hours. The other issue I saw when I was new was that sometimes the pull-down menu would settle on the wrong client.  If the freelancer has multiple open contracts, maybe? This happened more with my previous laptop but it got very buggy (before it died). I haven't had that issue since I upgraded. But it was easy to fix, I fixed it immediately by deleting the incorrect hours. (I also immediately sent the client a message just in case they received notice that I logged hours).  

 

More concerning to me is the freelancer didn't figure out how to fix the issue. Did they reach out to inform you of the mistake, or did they only admit it after you asked?

sam-sly
Community Member

Adding on, if the freelancer can't/won't fix it before your review period ends, definitely dispute the extra hours.  To me, it seems a little shady that they are not correcting their mistake. 

acad5bb6
Community Member

Thank you! 

They only said something after I asked. 

I'll have to think what to do!

 

petra_r
Community Member


Sarah R wrote:

 

I'll have to think what to do!

 


If the hours were added this week, the freelancer can simply delete them.

If the hours were added last week, you can dispute them but only up to Friday night, midnight UTC

 

Sarah:

It is entirely possible that the freelancer intentionally added 4 hours of time manually, and then when you asked her about it, she claimed ignorance.

 

It is also possible for a freelancer to add time to the wrong contract if she is really not paying attention.

 

It is possible for a freelancer to add the wrong amount of time if she is really not paying attention.

 

The user interface is not really complicated, but if a freelancer navigates to the work diary page and then more or less randomly clicks on things, it is theoretically possible for a freelancer to "accidentally" do things.

 

It is unlikely. But it possible.

 

Carelessness or a lack of attention to detail while using the work diary interface COULD result in a freelancer recording time in the wrong place, or the wrong amount of time.

 

What if the freelancer logged 4 hours of time, and did not want to argue about this amount of time when you asked her about it?

 

My recommendation is to consider a freelancer's work as a whole, and not make decisions based purely on the work diary.

 

If you have 5 freelancers working for you, and one of them is clearly the best worker who provides you with the best value and helps your company the most, then it may make sense for a client to continue working with that freelancer even if things in that freelancer's work diary seem confusing.

 

On the other hand, if there is a freelancer whose work diary seems rock solid and has nothing suspicious, but that freelancer's work is problematic and you don't think it is worthwhile to have her on the team... Then you can close the contract on such a freelancer. You don't need to point to the work diary in order to fire somebody.

I have added time to the wrong contract before, because I usually just have one hourly client, so I forgot to switch. But as soon as she brought it to my attention (and it was only like 10 minutes) I went right out to my work diary and deleted it.

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