Billing for Sidework

[Blu1913]

Ok, so working for a City for all of my career, I have no idea how private firms charge clients. I know this is going to be a huge request...but can someone tell me how I would break it down when doing sidework?

For example: Do I just charge them $$$ per hour for all services then write up a contract with them with a not-to-exceed? And how would I find out what reasonable rates are? Do I just go off what I see other firms charging people by the hour?

I really have no experience with this, so flood me with info if you got it!

Thanks brothers... :bow:

 

[rleon82]

Are you a P.E.? What type of work are you doing? Are we talking cash payment? We need more info to accurately answer your question.

Rleon82

 

[Road Guy]

yes what type of work, there are lots of things involved, contracts, insurance, etc.

If your going to be doing small stuff, you can probably create a basic invoice in excel, and some form of a "time sheet" to back up your invoice.

My wife works for herself, I do most of her books, some places let her get by with a one line invoice, I worked 82 hours last month, my rate is $75/hour, send me $________. Other places require much more detail (time sheets, daily work descriptions, etc)

 

[Blu1913]

ic, ic,

Well I WILL be a PE here soon and its mostly going to be site design, specifically stormwater.

I have clients drooling for when I get my PE...but I dont even know where to begin.

How do I come up with my base price? Does my base price include all overhead etc?

Then if a client is ok with my proposal...do I need a lawyer to make up a binding contract. I sure dont want to get screwed and Im sure my client wouldnt either...

 

[Road Guy]

When we bill a client we have:

Direct Labor (Your Hourly Rate) say its $40/hour

Overhead % say 120% , then its up to $56/hour

Profit (10%-really whatever you want) Total Billed = $61.60 / hour (employee gets $40, firm gets the rest)

Your really better off to just come up with a rate which includes all of your overhead /profit.

But your overhead is anything that is costing you money (printers,software,hardware,computers,accountants,laywers, etc)

Dont know what your going to do, but if your going to legitamelty buy your own software, that stuff can add up, as well as printing cost, etc, you just need to look at everything it would take to "do" a project be very "liberal" with hours & dollars. Dont forget insuarnce, etc.

I used to work with guys who did subdivisions on the side, they would make a cool $10G's working a few weekends laying out the subdivision to get it through permit phases, I dont know if they had insurance, accountants, got paid under the table or what.

But expect to be 1099'd at the end of the year if you not doing business under the table, which means even a few extra thousand could put you in the next higher tax bracket. & if you get 1099's and owe money at the end of the year, the penalty is much steeper, so theres accounting "shit" to worry about as well.

Usually if they are asking YOU to do the work they will give you the contract, most of the time it comes down to having a certain amount of insurance $$ set up and making sure your insurance includes the word "negligent" errors. but yes I would get someone to look at it..