Upwork time tracking

[sylvachoucair]

Hi ! 
Im an interior architect wworking on UPwork.
I have an issue with the Desktop time tracker.
I have a project that requires a videowalk through. 
That being said, inorder to do the video forthe client i need to set my rendering unit on where i cannot work anymore on the unit since it is supposed to be untoched for the video to render. 

I had my time tracker on but the hours were not automatically logged. I ended up manually doing this. 
My client seems very nice and cool. We havent had any dispute regaarding the matter. But, i want to prevent any dispute from happening before it even happens. I mean its the clients full right to know why my houres are not automatically logged with screenshots every 10 minutes ! 

[petra_r]

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Sylva C wrote:

That being said, inorder to do the video forthe client i need to set my rendering unit on where i cannot work anymore on the unit since it is supposed to be untoched for the video to render. 

I had my time tracker on but the hours were not automatically logged. I ended up manually doing this. 

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You charge the full hourly rate for the computer rendering? Even though you're not actually working? I can see that going wrong pretty quickly... Did you tell the client that you'll be doing that?

[sylvachoucair]

We have not yet negotiated the price per hour for the rendering, But since i cannot access my unit and work on something else i have to charge something. My time is frozen and i have to be present on the unit to make sure that the rendering is going well and there are no errors. 
Nonetheless, even i charge the client half the price or 1/4 of it, i have to have a valid proof that i was in fact rendering , I was very happy with the 10 minutes screenshot and activity meter so i can protect myself and the client can see that it was in fact this case ! 
Please advize !

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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Sylva C wrote:

We have not yet negotiated the price per hour for the rendering,

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This is something that absolutely MUST be discussed and agreed upon before the contract even starts. 

That said, the tracker only captures time you spend actively working. There is no way (well, no way that won't get you suspended) to make it track time that has no keyboard or mouse activity.

[sylvachoucair]

Thanks for your solution Petra, I am new on Upwork so that should be a lesson for me regarding that matter. Will make sure to agree with my future and ongoing clients before signing the contract. 
Regarding that client, since it is solelly my fault, i will make sure to explain everything with him and reduce the number of hours ! 

Thank Again for your help!

[marc_compte]

This is more common than it may look.

Some people think us, computer programmers, are just key smashers and that our work is only "actual work" when we hit the keyboard. Some projects are, indeed, like that. If it is simple, by the time you read the job posting you already have everything in your mind, and you can simply smash keys as soon as they hire you.

But sometimes it is not like that. Depending on the complexity of the project, employed programmers may spend up to half their working time thinking a solution and an architecture and half the time making it happen. This may be difficult to understand for someone who has never programmed and difficult to translate into the freelancer world.

If you find a nice client you can discuss this beforehand, if you think your working time without keyboard interaction may be too big. Otherwise, another option is to charge nothing for the parts where you don't have interaction with the keyboard or mouse and raise your hourly rate for the "actual work" to cover also the other parts.

Think of it as going to a store. They charge you for the products you buy (clothes, food,...) but the price they put on their products is meant to cover also other expenses (renting, personnel,...), and they usually never break it down for you in the invoice.

If you provide quality work, and it looks like you do, you will want to have a high rate anyway. The clients who value quality work will be happy to pay you more even if they only see the "actual work". If the client doesn't value quality work, that client may not be a match for you anyway.

I'm not sure what's the usual rate in your field and it looks like you just started on Upwork, so maybe this is not something you can do right now, or maybe you can. That, I don't know.