How to know if manual time will be paid?

[diyconnect]

Hi all, 

I had a customer wanting to try one idea. We agreed on my charging 1hour manual time to cover the cost of material and to make test piece and then continue making models with houry payment.

After getting the test pieces customer concluded he will take another approach and closed the contract.

How can I know if that 1 hour will be paid or not ? it was added on Monday and from what I understand it well he has 5 days after week has passed to verify timesheet. That will be next Friday and he closed contract now and doubt will come back on it.

[gilbert-phyllis · Accepted solution]

Time logged this week will be In Review through Friday, Aug. 23. If the client does not challenge it, then the funds will be available to you five days after that, on Aug. 28. If the client does challenge it and refuse to pay, there will be nothing you can do because manual time is not protected. I have earned a lot of money here via manual hourly contracts, however, there is never a guarantee. That said, you have no reason to think the client will not pay you the hour. Wait and see.

[diyconnect]

I supposed that it is like that but wanted to check.

Other problem is that I'm expected to leave feedback now for closed contract and wonder what to do.

In the end, client communicated well and seemed reasonable and all. He did have somewhat unusuall project and expectations and by no means I can be given bad review for making 3D printed part in translucent red looking "plastic" 🙂

We did talk about making dozens of printed pieces if it all goes ok, but like said now he closed contract saying :

I'm going to close the contract but if you want to experiment further then feel free. but I can't pay for this.

gave you high rating anyways so best of luck

Regardless the fact what someone sees luxury or cheap (red plastic cross with LED light is not for me but I'm not judging), I still had to get exact one filament, electronics and 2h print time. 

From this last message I can not conclude if he will reject any payment, or has just stated that he won't go further with ordering actual pieces 🙂

[gilbert-phyllis]

You have 14 days to leave feedback. Just wait and see if you get paid.

[prestonhunter]

Normally manual time IS paid.

If you log manual time, it is AUTOMATICALLY billed to the client's credit card and the money is paid to you.

The client DOES NOT NEED to do anything.

However:

Manual time is NOT protected.

It is POSSIBLE for the client to dispute manual time, as long as they do so within the allowed review period.

Upwork automatically deletes any manual time that a client disputes, and doesn't pay you for it.

So the short answer is:

Manual time that doesn't exceed your maximum weekly allowed hours is ALWAYS paid AUTOMATICALLY...

...Unless the client doesn't want to pay you for that time and knows how to dispute it.

[prestonhunter]

Another rare caveat is that because manual time is NOT protected by Upwork Payment Protection plan, if Upwork is unable to bill the client's credit card, then you won't get paid for manual time. But non-manual time, if it meets the Payment Protection criteria, will result in the freelancer getting paid EVEN IF Upwork can't charge the client's credit card.

I know from first-hand experience that this works. Upwork has paid me out of their own pockets for time I logged (NOT MANUAL TIME) - when a client's payment method failed.