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rahulserver
Community Member

Reduce the review period for hourly jobs

There has been a lot of rant about 5 day security hold on escrow funds and this post is not about that. 

 

For hourly jobs, the client has 5 days to review the worksheet (Mon-Fri) from previous work week. In majority of the cases, clients usually approve this by Monday/Tuesday(I can tell this on basis of what my clients have told me). 

 

So wouldn't it make sense to start the escrow period as soon as the client approves the timesheet as it used to happen on elance?

 

Particularly for long term clients does it make sense to even have that 5 day review period for hourly tasks? (Again not talking about the 5 day security hold) 

 

Because mostly client does not even review that timesheet after a good rapport and trust is established with a freelancer.

 

Overall this makes the total delay in hourly jobs payment to be around 10-11 days(and add 3 more if you are using wire transfer or upwork transfer to bank account. Then if its a weekend, then add 2 more making total to about 15 days).

 

Now I understand most of you will say "this is normal, people even wait for a month to get paid" or "you must learn to manage your finances". But my reply to them would be that it doesn't make sense to have it that way just because its "normal".

 

Of late fees for upwork have gone up, including charges for connects, premimum membership etc..

 

So I strongly feel that this something that must be done to provide a better experience for freelancers.

8 REPLIES 8
petra_r
Community Member


Rahul P wrote:

In majority of the cases, clients usually approve this by Monday/Tuesday (I can tell this on basis of what my clients have told me). 


Clients told you that? Really? There is no such thing as "approving" the timesheet.

 

You must have very confused clients.

 

People have been whining about this as long as I've been on the platform (8+ years.) I doubt anything is going to change any time soon.

 

Personally I think it is partly also to do with Upwork wanting / needing to be able to predict and organize for the bulk of outgoing payments to happen at the same time and day every week (midnight Tuesday UTC), just as the bulk of the incoming payments happen at the same time and on the same day every week (Monday afternoon UTC)

 

I doubt that is a coincidence.

"Clients told you that? Really? There is no such thing as "approving" the timesheet."

 

Yes REALLY!

If its allowed by community guidelines, then I can even share the screenshot. 

And whether they are confused or you are, I can tell this after I myself hire someone for a hourly job on upwork(haven't done that after odesk was gone).

 

The weekly payment cycle is flawed IMO because imagine a scenario when a client hires me for less than a week and ends the contract. And then he removes his credit card from account and goes missing/deletes his upwork account. Then where will upwork get the payment from(since client is billed on following Friday)?

 

Isn't this an anomaly thats been there for so long and should be fixed?

 

 


Rahul P wrote:

"Clients told you that? Really? There is no such thing as "approving" the timesheet."

 

Yes REALLY!


There is no function to approve a timesheet, only to dispute it.

 


Rahul P wrote:

I can tell this after I myself hire someone for a hourly job on upwork(haven't done that after odesk was gone).


And you "approved" a timesheet (Hint: You didn't.)  It wasn't possible on oDesk either,

 


Rahul P wrote:

The weekly payment cycle is flawed IMO because imagine a scenario when a client hires me for less than a week and ends the contract. And then he removes his credit card from account and goes missing/deletes his upwork account. T


It isn't possible for a client to remove the only credit card from the account, or to close their account when there are pending hours.

In the case the payment method fails, you are protected anyway if you have logged your hours correctly.

 

 


Rahul P wrote:

Then where will upwork get the payment from(since client is billed on following Friday)?


Clients are not billed on Friday. Clients are billed on Monday immediately following the end of the working week.

 

You clearly do not understand how Upwork works.

Still the problem remains. Clients are invoiced on Monday as per this

 

But if my contracts ends on wednesday and client disables his credit card then my payment is surely gone. 

 

I think I just put a logical point and I see this discussion going in some other direction!

 


Rahul P wrote:

But if my contracts ends on wednesday and client disables his credit card then my payment is surely gone. 


As I mentioned previously, it is physically impossible for a client to remove / disable their credit card, so no, your payment hasn't "surely gone" and "the problem" does not "remain" because the client can not do what I now twice explained to you they can't do.

 

Also, even if the payment method fails, you would be protected under the hourly payment protection if you logged your hours properly.

 


Rahul P wrote:

Clients are invoiced on Monday as per this


Yes, as I explained to you above (twice!) whereas you claimed they are charged on Fridays.

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Rahul, 


Thank you for sharing your thoughts here. Our team is still looking into solutions that will allow for the security period to be reduced while maintaining a high level of protection users' payments currently have. We'll update the Community once we receive feedback from our Product team but I can confirm that our team is not considering reducing the timeline for automatically releasing Escrow funds.

 

While we continue to test ways to get freelancers' earnings faster to them, at this point we are not able to offer a shorter security period for all transactions. Security remains to be our priority.


~ Avery
Upwork
52e029a8
Community Member

Hi Avery its been roughly 3 years since this, has anything been improved on regarding this 5 day review period

 

Hi Paul,

 

Thank you for reaching out. The five-day security period is still being implemented and will remain our standard process. If anything changes, we will update everyone and post the announcement here in the Community.


~ AJ
Upwork
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