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jandomvas
Community Member

Invoices generated by Upwork?

Hi, I was hired by a client to do work on a weekly basis (weekly retainer payment method) that the client said would only take an hour. It took me four hours and by the end of one day, I had earned $3.50 per hour after fees & taxes. I let the client know it wasn't going to work but that I would finish the week at no cost to her. (I am new and I was worried about getting my first review and having it be  bad one.)  I worked the next day. Late in the afternoon, she closed the job. 

 

Now I there is an invoice for her that I didn't generate and a fee from Upwork for me. I messaged the client letter her know that I didn't invoice her; she hasn't responded. 

 

So, my questions are:

1. Does Upwork generate invoices for you?

2. Do I eat the cost of the fee?

 

Thanks, 

Janine

12 REPLIES 12
dsmgdesign
Community Member



1. Yes 

2. Yes

Hi Janine. The weekly payment is charged to the client automatically each week. No action is required on your part.  If you mean that you don't want to charge the client anything for the work that you've done,  you can refund the payment.  In that case the fees would be cancelled too, and any feedback from the client would be removed from your profile.  But the no-earnings contract would have a negative effect on your Job Success Score when you get one. 

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your response. How can I refund the payment if she never paid me? When I go to my transaction history, I see that the Salary and Service Fee are "pending." 

Thanks,

Janine

Hi Janine,

 

You can refund transactions that are still pending and even if a contract has been closed. To do it, go to My Jobs> All Contracts, click on the name of the contract. On the contract page, click on the menu button (...) and you'll see an option to refund. 

I would recommend that you check with the client to make sure you're on the same page and are refunding a correct transaction. Refunds cannot be reversed.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hi Valerie, 

Thanks for letting me know how to fix this on my end. 

 

-Janine

tta192
Community Member


Janine D wrote:

Hi, I was hired by a client to do work on a weekly basis (weekly retainer payment method) that the client said would only take an hour. It took me four hours and by the end of one day, I had earned $3.50 per hour after fees & taxes. I let the client know it wasn't going to work but that I would finish the week at no cost to her. (I am new and I was worried about getting my first review and having it be  bad one.)  I worked the next day. Late in the afternoon, she closed the job. 

 

Now I there is an invoice for her that I didn't generate and a fee from Upwork for me. I messaged the client letter her know that I didn't invoice her; she hasn't responded. 

 

So, my questions are:

1. Does Upwork generate invoices for you?

2. Do I eat the cost of the fee?

 

Thanks, 

Janine


Working for free is prohibited and against the TOS. Doing it in exchange for good feedback or to avoid bad feedback is even more serious. Don't do any of these or you'll get suspended. (or at least don't brag on the forum about it;)

 

It also looks like you bailed a little too soon on the project, maybe you needed time to adjust to the work or it might have been possible to rediscuss the terms with the client later. After all you were in it for the feedback not the money so you should have focused on that instead.

 

 

 

 

jandomvas
Community Member

Hi Andrei, 

My intention wasn't to work for free. The client -a highly-compensated mom & lifestyle blogger and her husband- told me they had "a few accounts on Instagram that they needed help engaging with... that would take no longer than an hour a day to complete," a blog post or two to help write, and some LinkedIn research. All for $100 a week. There were 160 accounts and it took 4 hours to find each account, like, and "authentically" comment on each. I ended up making roughly $3.50 per hour on that first day. I honestly didn't even think about the TOS violation re: working for free and trying to not get a bad review. I failed to ask how many "a few accounts" actually was, so I decided to offer her that I would finish the week off and let it go. She seemed fine with this and has more Upwork experience than I do. When I went to log in the following day she had changed the PW and told me not to worry about it. 

 

Andrei, I wasn't doing it for a good review, I was working for money. Sadly, I can't go to my landlady with good reviews and sad stories from my second Upwork gig. I didn't "bail," I followed my instincts. I just want real work for a real wage.

-Janine

 

Prospective clients telling us how much time a task should take is to my mind always a red flag. 

Most clients are simply not in a position to know how long things take; if they are, it is still arrogant of them to tell us so before the fact; and the lower their time estimate, the less likely it would be worth their while to hire someone to do it.

How long a task takes is something we need to know prior to undertaking any job, if we ever expect to get a return on our investment of time. We need to be able to tell clients: "No, that's not a one-hour job, that's a six-hour job." That is one among many reasons to only bid on contracts where we are familiar with the task, know how long it takes to complete it, and are sure we have all the requisite specs from the client.

Thanks, Douglas. I wondered if the client had any idea that it would take someone else to do this job. I'm quite familiar with writing but engaging strangers and sounding like a friend of theirs takes a bit of time. 

 

I appreciate your comments. 

 

Janine

petra_r
Community Member


Andrei T wrote:


Working for free is prohibited and against the TOS.


It is not.

 

Clients are not allowed to ask anyone to work for free. NOTHING in the t.o.s. forbids what she did. 

 

Thanks, Petra, I don't want to violate the TOS.

 

-Janine

I LIKE choices, and I like the fact that the new weekly retainer contract option is available. But freelancers need to use it wisely.

 

As a practical matter, the traditional Upwork hourly contract model with the weekly "salary" (automatic payment) makes more sense for freelancers: Getting paid a set amount just to be under contract and available for a client, and then billing for any actual time logged: that is very fair and equitable.

 

The weekly retainer option should be used for special circumstances where it benefits both freelancer and client. Freelancers should not stay in weekly retainer situations where they end up earning very little relative to the work they are doing.

 

The original poster realized this and wisely decided to extricate herself from the situation.

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