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Would be interested in hearing whether anyone's successfully used that style of billing in engineering. I haven't heard of it being common/allowed at least in t

Would be interested in hearing whether anyone's successfully used that style of billing in engineering. I haven't heard of it being common/allowed at least in the oil & gas sector, though I haven't done any kind of big study of it. Of course, if you're bidding on a fixed-rate contract, you can internally account for your labor however you want. But if you're bidding on a cost-plus contract, the labor part of cost is—at least as far as I've run in to—expected to be in the unit "hours". RfP systems often even have that expectation baked in to the software. (You can add terms specifying minimum billing increments and such, common especially around site visits being billed in minimum 4-hour or 8-hour increments, but the actual quoted rate ends up being in the unit "hours" still.)

sarciszewski 11y ago
The kind of freelancing (consulting, really) that Thomas is referring to usually isn't the kind where you have to type numbers into an application to get paid. Usually it involves hand-shakes and emailing an invoice to the accounts payable department of your client and receiving an ACH transfer or check in the mail. If technology is a barrier, I can almost guarantee they aren't happy about it either, and maybe they would like to have a conversation about the pain points of their outsourcing solutions. (Hint hint.)
- _delirium 11y ago
  Maybe we're thinking of different kinds of consulting. What I have in mind doesn't involve handshakes and emailed invoices, but usually competitive bids. They want some work done, and invite consulting companies to submit proposals. They choose a proposal they like, and if chosen you do it and get paid according to the terms. Usually somewhat standardized terms so they can reasonably compare the bids, and do some kind of oversight.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    Is what you're describing similar to the eLance/oDesk/Upstart race-to-the-bottom that plagues novice freelancers?
    - _delirium 11y ago
      If $300-500/hr rates are the bottom, then yes. :) It's not really new, though; competitive bids have been around forever. Many government contracts even legally require them, as a way of attempting to combat corruption.
      - sarciszewski 11y ago
        Apologies, I've not gone down the government contract route yet (and I'm not in a hurry to travel that road either) so I misread the context as corporations doing a reverse-auction among competing clients.
sjs382 11y ago
A daily rate is very common among consultants in the oil and gas industry.

sarciszewski 11y ago

The kind of freelancing (consulting, really) that Thomas is referring to usually isn't the kind where you have to type numbers into an application to get paid. Usually it involves hand-shakes and emailing an invoice to the accounts payable department of your client and receiving an ACH transfer or check in the mail. If technology is a barrier, I can almost guarantee they aren't happy about it either, and maybe they would like to have a conversation about the pain points of their outsourcing solutions. (Hint hint.)

_delirium 11y ago
Maybe we're thinking of different kinds of consulting. What I have in mind doesn't involve handshakes and emailed invoices, but usually competitive bids. They want some work done, and invite consulting companies to submit proposals. They choose a proposal they like, and if chosen you do it and get paid according to the terms. Usually somewhat standardized terms so they can reasonably compare the bids, and do some kind of oversight.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Is what you're describing similar to the eLance/oDesk/Upstart race-to-the-bottom that plagues novice freelancers?
  - _delirium 11y ago
    If $300-500/hr rates are the bottom, then yes. :) It's not really new, though; competitive bids have been around forever. Many government contracts even legally require them, as a way of attempting to combat corruption.
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      Apologies, I've not gone down the government contract route yet (and I'm not in a hurry to travel that road either) so I misread the context as corporations doing a reverse-auction among competing clients.

sjs382 11y ago

A daily rate is very common among consultants in the oil and gas industry.