Deducted working hours

[chloeliu]

Hi, I am new to Upwork. I have recently started working a project on an hourly rate. My time tracker shows that I spent 2 hours 20 minutes working hours but it only shows 1 hour 33 minutes on Client's recent history. (ps: I did turn off the time tracker when I am not working.)

My questions are:

Why my working hours is deducted?

Do I need to wait for the client's approval to get billed or I will get bill automatically?
What is the time cycle for the screenshot? I am confused that I got screenshot twice in 10 minutes or screen capturing not on time.   

I have been struggling these for a while and I hope someone can tell me what is happening. Thank you!

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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Chloe L wrote:

I have been struggling these for a while and I hope someone can tell me what is happening. Thank you!

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The tracker counts and bills in 10 minute segments and takes a screenshot once per 10 minute segment provided there is activity (keyboard and / or mouseclicks)
The segments are always XX.00 to XX.10, XX.10 to XX.20, XX.20 to XX.30, XX.30 to XX.40, XX.40 to XX.50 and XX.50 to XX.00

The screenshots happen at a random point within the segment, so can be as close a 1 minute apart and as far as (nearly) 20 minutes apart. If you turn the tracker off in a segment before a screenshot was taken, the segment is not billed.

The way to be fair to yourself and your client, it makes sense to work in full 10 minute segments.

Time without any activity (no mouse or keyboard activity) is not counted or billed or charged.

Tracked time is not suitable for working short spurts of minutes here and minutes there. It's also not suitable for work tthat does not involve the keyboard and/or the mouse.

You don't have to do anything, the client is billed automatically on Monday for all time logged during the previous week.

[chloeliu]

Thank you so much!! 🙂

[franks_tim]

You should be able to review the time you've logged on the contract and see if any of it is under dispute. Also, as far as I'm aware, Upwork would notify you if they took it upon themselves to remove some of your time.

I had it a couple of times where Upwork threatened to remove hours from me because of inactivity with my mouse and keyboard, (a big part of that job was reviewing videos, so I wouldn't touch the mouse and keyboard for sometimes 20 minutes). BUT, they didn't do anything in the end as, I suspect, my memos and the screen captures showed I was reviewing videos.  

Your hours will be under a review process, where the client has 5 days to review and possibly dispute logged hours (Sunday to Friday). 

The screenshot cycles seem to be roughly on a 10-minute cycle. Occasionally, as you said, it'll take multiple screenshots within 10-minutes, then at other times, it won't take one for 15-minutes. I think they do it randomly so freelancers can't go on something else and time when they're opening up their work to coincide with the screenshots. 

[petra_r]

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Timothy F wrote:

You should be able to review the time you've logged on the contract and see if any of it is under dispute. 

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There can't be a dispute. The client hasn't been charged yet.

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Timothy F wrote:

Upwork would notify you if they took it upon themselves to remove some of your time.

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Upwork do not "remove time"

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Timothy F wrote:

Your hours will be under a review process, where the client has 5 days to review and possibly dispute logged hours (Sunday to Friday). 

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No, they are under "work in progress" until midnight tonight UTC

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Timothy F wrote:

The screenshot cycles seem to be roughly on a 10-minute cycle. 

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They are on average exactly 10 minutes apart as they happen once per time segment and the time segments are 10 minutes exactly.

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Timothy F wrote:

 it'll take multiple screenshots within 10-minutes 

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There is never more than one screenshot in any one 10 minute segment, which means there can be 2 screenshots in a 10 minute period that spans 2 segments, not multiple. 

[franks_tim]

"There can't be a dispute. The client hasn't been charged yet." 
- It's general advice. I meant if and when there is one. 

"Upwork do not "remove time" "

- Regardless of the terminology, I've been directly threatened by Upwork that they themselves will remove, deduct, erase, take away, make invalid, obliterate, decimate, delete from existence, remove from the time-space continuum, some of my logged time in the past due to inactivity. So if they don't actually do that, I guess their threat was hollow. 

"No, they are under "work in progress" until midnight tonight UTC"

- Yes, where they entre a 5-day review window, from Sunday to Friday, where the client has time to check the work... 



"They are on average exactly 10 minutes apart as they happen once per time segment and the time segments are 10 minutes exactly." 

- As I said, I've had screenshots within a couple of minutes of each other and sometimes no screenshot for 15 minutes. 

"There is never more than one screenshot in anyone 10-minute segment, which means there can be 2 screenshots in a 10 minute period that spans 2 segments, not multiple. "
- I had multiple screenshots within 10-minutes of each other.  I also had eight screenshots within 60 minutes of each other. 

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[petra_r]

Timothy wrote:

- I had multiple screenshots within 10-minutes of each other.

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The maximum you can have had is 2, in two different segments.

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Timothy F wrote:

I also had eight screenshots within 60 minutes of each other. 

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Completely impossible. That would be 8 segments. 8 segments must be over 70 minutes.

There is only EVER one screenshot in each 10 minute segment (XX.X0 to XX-X0)

Take a long look at your work diary.

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Timothy wrote:

"No, they are under "work in progress" until midnight tonight UTC"

- Yes, where they entre a 5-day review window, from Sunday to Friday, where the client has time to check the work... 

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The review window is Monday to Friday UTC, not Sunday to Friday.