Time spent traveling is still time out of your day that could be devoted to other projects or free time. You should always bill for that time, including the cost of travel.

I've always worked under set fee contracts + reimbursable expenses, of which travel was always included. The time spent traveling is always included on the time sheet for accounting purposes but usually part of the original contract. Other travel expenses including airfare, mileage, rental cars, parking, tolls, lodging and meals are part of the reimburasable contract.

Of all the offices I've worked in this seems pretty common. Even if you are a sole proprietor billing clients per hour you still want to keep close eye on all your travel expenses for tax purposes. If your clients are adverse to paying you for the travel expenses I'd suggest you build that into your hourly rate.

Aquapura's method is exactly the way we do it also.

We also stipulate a number of site meetings included for each job. For example, we indicate X site visits for the whole project is included as part of the contract. After that, we are entitled to additional services billed at an hourly rate for the travel time. We always stipulate what the hourly rates are for each staff position, so there is no dispute. Hopefully you have a similar clause in your contract.

You need compensation for that time, but few clients seem very excited to get billed for it.

Sometimes we've taken into account a guess of how much time we expect to kill on the road and fluffed it into the total percentage we propose at the outset.

i'm sure we charge a little too much or not quite enough, but at least it's not a highlighted and separated extra bill for the client to generate angst over...

If you're hourly, I guess you're pretty much stuck itemizing and taking the heat.

It's important to educate clients that time spent traveling to a project site or a project meeting is time you are not able to devote to other revenue producing work. It's also important for clients to understand that the cost of operating a vehicle when delivering of services must be recovered.

With two exceptions (discussed below) all project related travel time should be billed to the client, along with appropriate transportation charges. The simple fact is that some client's projects - because of the site's location or the client's location - are more expensive to serve and support. However, to the extent you can work on the client's project, or another project, while traveling, that time should be charged to the appropriate account and not recorded as travel time.

The exceptions:
a. travel required to fix a mistake we might have made
b. travel requiring extremely long hours -- ie > 8-hours of travel time.

If the first exception, we don't charge for that time. In the second exception, we stop charging for time once we've accumulated a full-day's worth of hours.

If you want to give it away for free, that's your choice. But, you're only shortchanging yourself.

Around here, it's normal to take the fee, and add 8% to the general fee. This is to cover printing, traveling and all that stuff.

: that's certainly one approach. however, it probably only makes sense if you all of your clients and sites are local. if your clients and sites are widely dispersed, that approach is a bargain for those clients whose sites are distant and a burden for those clients whose sites are close.

Just this week I had an attorney try that approach on me ... I rejected it because it was clear our legal issue would involve very little printing, travel, etc.

ditto aquapura's response with this caveat: we assume and discuss with our clients that local mileage is ok but we will get their approval before spending their $$ on airfare/hotels/etc.