IT Contractor Billing

Offy

How does billing work for contract jobs in IT? Has anyone got first hand experience?

yop

What do you mean exactly??

Offy

I advertised for someone to set up a gateway, firewall, e-mail server and router using Red Hat. It requires both on site and off site time. How would a contractor on an hourly rate normally bill for this? What is considered revelent as reguards TAX and VAT ect..

dazberry

Originally posted by Offy
I advertised for someone to set up a gateway, firewall, e-mail server and router using Red Hat. It requires both on site and off site time. How would a contractor on an hourly rate normally bill for this? What is considered revelent as reguards TAX and VAT ect..

I can't really tell you a rate, but regarding TAX and VAT:

You and the contractor agree an hourly (or daily) rate. The rate excludes VAT. The contractor (subject to time sheets), bills you number of hours * agreed rate. In addition, if the contractor is registered for VAT, they would include the VAT component in the invoice.

The TAX element is the responsibility of the contractor. The VAT element (if applicable) is also the responsibility of the contractor, however if you are registered for VAT, you take it off you own VAT bill.

If the setup requirements are pretty well defined (with ongoing administration), you could always set a fixed price (ex VAT) for the setup, and then agree an hourly rate for the offsite administration (plus expenses - presuming remote administration costs).

Now I'll probably be shot for saying this...
Gateway, Firewall and (Software) Router setup is a no-brainer on an NT Workstation box with any of the Kerio WinRoute products. If you've ~some~ NT/2K experience you could do it all yourself with those products. Ok, it depends on what the contractor charges you (+ ongoing admin), vs what user numbers you need to support and the cost of the software.

The mail server is another story. [OT] Interestingly a friend of mine was telling me the other day that they are about to release a mail server in the new year designed to work inside an office LAN but also route out to external mail server(s) - both fetching and sending as required. A Win32 product, and probably too late for you, but nice to know its been developed here

D.

MagicBusDriver

WinGate is better than winroute.

It has more features and also does a mail server.

Victor

My experience has been some IT contractors will bill you for everything, then bill it again.

---

For example, terminating cat5 cables (11, wiring done) and fitting face plates (11).

3 hours (including travel, on site for 1.5 hours) @ £75/hour = £225 +VAT
11 faceplaces @£;19 = £209 +VAT
Total = £434 + VAT

Now I can understand one charge or the other, but both???? (face plates were retailing at abouyt £1.50 at the time)

dazberry

Originally posted by MagicBusDriver
WinGate is better than winroute.

It has more features and also does a mail server.

WinRoute Pro has a mail server. The last version of WinGate I used sucked. It was a proxy server whereby WinRoute is a software router. Admittedly that could have changed.

D.