Happy client has requested return of funds from escrow. How to proceed without affecting SuccessScor

[wizzdev_lukasz]

I had a few successful jobs with my client. On current job I estimated the work in hours and then we actually agree on fixed price. I promised that if the work will take less then the client will actually pay less. It just happen so that the work took less time then estimated and we were planing to change the Job to lower fixed price. But then the job was automatically cancelled by UpWork apparently because of no activity. I just spoken with client and he is happy with work and performance. What would be the way forward if the UpWork job was cancelled and we just want to change the value on it? 

Should I click " I do not approve this request and want to file a dispute." and in the dispute there will be an option to resolve it without affecting our Success Score?

Many thanks in advance

[prestonhunter]

Lukasz:
A refund is not going to affect JSS.

If you want the money to go back to the client, then approve the refund request.

If you DON'T approve the refund request, then... yes, a dispute will be created. There will be no button to click to prevent the dispute from affecting JSS, because disputes don't affect JSS.

If your work took less time than anticipated and you don't need that escrow money, then just agree to the refund request and this will be over, without a dispute.

[wizzdev_lukasz]

Hi Preston,

Thank you for replayin to my question. I will try to be a bit more specific. We agreed with the client that we need to return him something like $500 from the escrow and the rest goes to me. How can we achive this in given situation without affecting JSS? Do I understand well that a job with no money earned, also affects JSS?

Many thanks, in advance,
Lukasz

[prestonhunter]

That is fine.

That won't impact JSS.

If $1000 is in escrow, and you refund $500...

JSS is not affected.

re: "Do I understand well that a job with no money earned, also affects JSS?l

We talked about that in the past. But things have changed now. Zero-pay job has no impact on JSS unless client leaves negative feedback.

[wizzdev_lukasz]

Many thanks,

Shell I then click " I do not approve this request and want to file a dispute."  and there will be a way to refund just part of what is in Escrow? 

[prestonhunter]

re: "Shall I then click 'I do not approve this request and want to file a dispute' and there will be a way to refund just part of what is in Escrow?"

If the client requested the PROPER AMOUNT of refund, then you should APPROVE the refund request immediately.

If the client did not request the PROPER AMOUNT of refund, then tell the client:

"Harold:

Thanks for working with me on this. I think we can get everything finalized very quickly. It looks like you closed out the contract while requesting a refund of $1000. But you only wanted a $500 refund. If I approve the request right now, all $1000 will go back to your credit card. If I don't approve the request, then a dispute will be created and it may take a lot more time to get this resolved. So what we can do is this: You can use the client-side 'Send bonus' tool to send me a $500 bonus payment. After you do that, I will APPROVE the refund request, so that you receive $1000 back. That end result will be what we want."

[petra_r]

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Preston H wrote:

If the client requested the PROPER AMOUNT of refund, then you should APPROVE the refund request immediately.

If the client did not request the PROPER AMOUNT of refund, then tell the client:

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The client didn't request ANYTHING.

The contract was closed by Upwork through inactivity and the refund request was automatically generated.

Lukasz, in future don't let contracts sit there for 3 months with no payments so this kind of thing won't happen again.

[wizzdev_lukasz]

Many thanks Petra!!

1. Shell I then click " I do not approve this request and want to file a dispute."  and there will be a way to refund just part of what is in Escrow? 

2. What is preferable method t handle 3 months projects. I have full histrory of Git commints to show that the project was run for 3 months.

[petra_r]

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Lukasz S wrote:

1. Shell I then click " I do not approve this request and want to file a dispute."  and there will be a way to refund just part of what is in Escrow? 

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No, there is no way to do that anymore. Ask the client to pay whatever you have agreed as a bonus. Then approve the refund

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Lukasz S wrote:

2. What is preferable method t handle 3 months projects.

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In reasonable milestones.

[prestonhunter]

re: "What is preferable method t handle 3 months projects."

I typically set up fixed-price contracts using milestones that take more than a day of work.

So if I am actively working on a fixed-price project, I may receive five or six payments during a single week.

A smaller, very specific fixed-price milestone is more easily managed by the freelancer and client.

"Create a great website for my company" is a bad fixed-piece task. It is vague and can be the source of disagreement.

"Create new tool on user management administrative page that allows admins to search users by email address" is specific and testable by the client.

For a client with a big project, building a complex system in a modular fashion, with individual components that are verifiable and make sense, is the key to success.

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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Preston H wrote:

I typically set up fixed-price contracts using milestones that take more than a day of work.

So if I am actively working on a fixed-price project, I may receive five or six payments during a single week.

A smaller, very specific fixed-price milestone is more easily managed by the freelancer and client.

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I do the opposite. I wouldn't want my poor clients to have to jump through lots of hoops every day to set up, describe, fund, activate, release miniscule milestones. I also fail to understand how this could possibly be "more easily managed" by either the freelancer or the client.

After 3 months and 90 daily milestones chances are the client has long lost the will to live.

[prestonhunter]

Petra: Those are some good points.

I described how I actually handle fixed-price contracts, which contrasts sharply with how the original poster handled his project (without getting a payment for over three months).

My own fixed-price work is probably subdivided into smaller milestones than are used by most freelancers.

I often recommend that freelancers use small milestones, but if daily milestones don't aren't what they want to do, then I recommend arranging things so they get paid at least once per week. That is comparable to how feeelancers get paid if they are using an hourly contract.

I don't think it benefits a client to have a freelancer hired to work on their behalf who works for too long before getting paid.

As a practical matter, most of the work I do is done with hourly contracts.

The work is still done in a modular fashion, but only a single contract is needed.

[wizzdev_lukasz]

This is all very helpful and interesting discussion. We are an UpWork agencies hence we need to come up with a process which works both for our Cleints and our full time employees jugling several projects at the same time. Moreover a lot of Firmware developemnt is with microcontrolers / harware which is not recorded in the screenshots of the hourly contracts. Developers often work with Linux / Windows + MCU + Moile App at the same time. 

But fair enought to try to keep milestones arround 1 week. Because we usullay commint to a hours budget we could define milestones at 40-80hours milestone (in this case the total was 150 hours+), spread over 3 months. And again this is also typical that we develop some functionality but and then wait for client to test it or order new version of hardware. 

Regarding my original question thought, It looks like you are suggesting to decline the refund. Get all the money from Escrow and then partial refund what is required using Refund functionality (hoping that client trust us enought to do it). 

Thank you

[petra_r]

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Lukasz S wrote:

Regarding my original question thought, It looks like you are suggesting to decline the refund.

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Once again: NO! You want to avoid a dispute if at all possible.

Ask the client to pay what was agreed by bonus. Then approve the request to return the escrow funds.