Confused about the hourly system

[jamespro94]

Hi everyone,

Since I started here on Upwork, I have only been able to land fixed-price jobs. I was fortunate to land my very first hourly contract yesterday (3hrs per week). I'm sort of confused about when the deadline for submission will be. I saw on my page that my work diary will automatically be invoiced to my client on Monday. When will the 'Monday' be? Tomorrow or next week Monday?

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

There are no "deadlines" associated with hourly contracts in the Upwork user interface.

If there is any "deadline", that would be between a client and a freelancer. For example, a client may tell you:

"James, could you please convert the Henderson file to U-98 format by Friday?"

Your time is logged WHILE you work, using the Upwork desktop time-tracker application. So a "deadline" is irrelevent in terms of logging your time. Logging happens instantly.

It is also possible to log hours manually when you have an hourly contract. Avoid doing that if possible. But some types of work require manually-logged time. For example: Baking a cake that is to be photographed for a recipe book.

If you use manual time, you are supposed to log your time immediately after a work session. TECHNICALLY it is possible to log time any time until the work week ends (midnight Sunday GMT). But postponing logging your time is disrespectful and potentially confusing for the client. And you might not get paid. If the contract is paused or closed before you log your manual time, then you won't be paid for that time.

Today is Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday. The client will be "invoiced" TOMORROW for the work that you did this week (during the past 7 days). The client's credit card will be AUTOMATICALLY billed. You don't need to anything else other than track your time while working. The client doesn't need to do anything at all.

[jamespro94]

Thanks for taking your time to explain in detail. I'm grateful.