Work Diary Question

[falter_john]

Hey all.

I'm new to UpWork. Yesterday, I received an offer for an editing job. However, I forgot to accept the offer. Now the job's done, and I can't retroactively log my time through the work diary. What would you suggest I do?

-John

[petra_r]

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John F wrote:

I'm new to UpWork. Yesterday, I received an offer for an editing job. However, I forgot to accept the offer. Now the job's done, and I can't retroactively log my time through the work diary. What would you suggest I do?

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When did you accept the contract?

How many hours did you work?

Is manual time allowed?

[falter_john]

I accepted today, around 11:30. I worked for 3.5 hours. Manual updates are allowed.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I can't retroactively log my time through the work diary. What would you suggest I do?"

In the future, use the Upwork tool correctly.

You did not use it correctly this time.

If the contract has actually been closed, then there is no way to log manual time.

As for what you can do about THIS contract:
You may write a VERY SHORT message to the client, explaining that you made a mistake by not logging your time, and asking if she could use the client-side "Pay bonus" tool to pay you the money. Or you could do nothing and just eat the loss.

[falter_john]

Yeah. The mistake was on my end. I might need to just eat the loss.

As of now, the contract is not closed. Does that make some difference?

Thank you for the response.

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

re: "As of now, the contract is not closed. Does that make some difference?"

If the contract is NOT CLOSED...

Then why don't you just go add manual time?

If you NEVER EVEN ACCEPTED the contract offer, then you should understand that the contract isn't "open." The contrat doesn't exist. There is only an offer.

But you could ACCEPT the offer. And then one hour from now, you would be able to log one hour of manual time.

That isn't the CORRECT way to do things. BUT: If the client sent you a Hire offer in good faith, and is intending to pay you... Then you could accept the offer right now. And in 3.5 hours, you will be able log all of the manual time necessary for you to be paid for the time you spent working on the project.

[falter_john]

I can't add manual time because I accepted the offer late. I can't add hours before the time I accepted the offer. And I can't log future hours as a stand-in.

Had I accepted the offer yesterday, this wouldn't be a problem.

[falter_john]

This wouldn't be a problem? I was just worried about that looking bad.

[prestonhunter]

re: "This wouldn't be a problem? I was just worried about that looking bad."

It is not going to be a problem. You won't look bad.

The client hired you in good faith, expecting to pay you for your time.

You did something a little "off" by not accepting the contract immediately and using to log time when you ACTUALLY did the work.

But the client probably won't even notice.

She'll see the work that you did, and see how much she was billed, and she'll probably think nothing more of it.

As a client I have hired LOTS of newbie freelancers. Lots of them have failed to log time properly. I typically close the contract and just pay them for their time using the "Pay bonus" tool. But sometimes they have asked if they can log their time manually so that they get the hours counted on their profile page. In which case, I leave the contract open long enough for them to add the manual hours, just like you need to do.