I definitely bill my travel time in a manner that is consistent with company policy. I work for a government contractor.

Our rules are officially, if you are traveling during the normal working hours you bill it. If it is outside normal working hours, it is manager discretion, but usually not billed.

For example, I am on travel right now -- too early to start working out here on the left coast...I flew out on Sunday. Time was not billed. I fly on on friday. Time will be billed.

The project/customer wants me at another location. That is part of the cost of business -- getting me to where they want me. And it is a contract cost.

The only exceptions to the rule on billing is when I fly a red-eye. I can not work the day after a red-eye, so I will bill the time. But, I only take red-eyes when there are no other options (e.g, travel to Europe, or back from Hawaii).

I also charge time driving between customers sites. If I have to go from my office to a customer's site, that is billible time.

Obviously, my commute time is not billable. Where it gets grey is a customer is very close to my house, and 40 min from work. I admit, I try to schedule meetings at 3:00 PM -- not to get paid for travel home, but to avoid rush hour.

I should add, I typically am working 50-60 hours per week...but I only get paid for 40 (usually), and the company typically only gets paid for 40.

Yes, I bill for travel time but I try to actually do work while waiting at the airport. I don't charge my time in the evenings unless I'm also working (which typically does happen if I'm in the field since I'm often in a different time zone and am doing work for the field staff during the day and dealing with USA HQ stuff in the evening).

Anonymous wrote:I recently switched to a new job that requires more travel. At my company, we bill our time to projects. I wasn't planning on billing my time on the flight but apparently lots of people do. Is this standard?

What do your client contracts say? This is spelled out. We have no idea what your company specifically negotiated in terms of labor rates and billing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bill time traveled. If I go to a meeting in another state and it's a plane or a long car ride and I get done in one day I may not bill more than one day. I'm a govt contractor. We have govt agency people working with us. They bill every last hour and get comp time etc. they don't travel on Sundays so that's always fun. I do travel on Sundays though.

It may vary by agency, but my agency asks us not to travel on weekends unless it's absolutely necessary because they owe us comp time outside of normal hours. I have traveled on Sunday, but only when necessary, because I follow the policy. I also put in for comp time when I do, because it is required - you have to list the day and time of the travel start and finish. So, it is basically unavoidable because the timesheet system recognizes your normal tour of duty. So, don't be too hasty judging, given there are different rules for Feds vs. contractors. It's not milking the system - it's complying with the system.

Oh I get it, the people I with are great and they are annoyed at the rules too sometimes. But it means that all the contractors have to work around that schedule and not have Monday morning meetings and test events since govt can't travel to them. It is what it is. We do that same thing of recording start and end of travel at my company.

I am a lawyer at a firm, and this usually is addressed in client engagement letters. Most clients allow me to bill for it, though some get a discounted rate for travel time.

Anonymous wrote:I bill time traveled. If I go to a meeting in another state and it's a plane or a long car ride and I get done in one day I may not bill more than one day. I'm a govt contractor. We have govt agency people working with us. They bill every last hour and get comp time etc. they don't travel on Sundays so that's always fun. I do travel on Sundays though.

It may vary by agency, but my agency asks us not to travel on weekends unless it's absolutely necessary because they owe us comp time outside of normal hours. I have traveled on Sunday, but only when necessary, because I follow the policy. I also put in for comp time when I do, because it is required - you have to list the day and time of the travel start and finish. So, it is basically unavoidable because the timesheet system recognizes your normal tour of duty. So, don't be too hasty judging, given there are different rules for Feds vs. contractors. It's not milking the system - it's complying with the system.

I bill time traveled. If I go to a meeting in another state and it's a plane or a long car ride and I get done in one day I may not bill more than one day. I'm a govt contractor. We have govt agency people working with us. They bill every last hour and get comp time etc. they don't travel on Sundays so that's always fun. I do travel on Sundays though.

My hair dresser comes to my house and re did her business model and while she didn't raise prices she started charging for travel time to my house. It's billed as 17 minutes. It seems kinda cheap to me.

I try to charge 8 hour days (or more if the actual work is more) for a travel day whether it's a 3 hour meeting or an 8 hour meeting because it's a work day I am devoting to a particular client (unless I am having more than one meeting in a city of course). I don't charge for travel specifically though. My rate is high enough ($600-700/hour) that I feel like the time really needs to be productive.

When I tracked non billable time I put travel down as non billable time just so I had a sense of where my time was going. I don't track non billable time anymore though - all that really matters for me is billable time.

Yes. I'm traveling for work, so the time I spend on an airplane is time spent supporting the project. I wouldn't spend those hours of my own time flying for the heck of it. If work requires me to do it, work pays for the time.

But, try to keep it efficient. If I get to the airport early for reasons of my own (easier to drive straight from dropping my kids off at school, etc) and spend a couple hours at the airport hanging out in a restaurant with my ipad, I don't charge that time. If I spend the extra time sitting in the airport working on my laptop, I do charge it. Only what work requires of me.

Anonymous wrote:Check with your boss. Practices vary widely in this. If it's client billing, presumably that's spelled out in a contract somewhere.

+1. I manage consulting contracts for a software company and our contracts often specifically state travel time isn't billable and even when they don't, we as a policy don't bill it. However, our hourly employees get paid for travel time so they charge the overhead codes for that. My last company didn't bill or pay for travel time.

Time in travel is time charged.

Check with your boss. Practices vary widely in this. If it's client billing, presumably that's spelled out in a contract somewhere.

I do.

I recently switched to a new job that requires more travel. At my company, we bill our time to projects. I wasn't planning on billing my time on the flight but apparently lots of people do. Is this standard?