Breaking down charges for clients

[aspdaddy]

I am writing a proposal to optimise a b2b sites presence on the web. Rather than set fees we have agreed an hourly rate and monthly invoice in arrears as the whole project is a bit wierd and might not yield great results - but the client is happy to take the risk.

What/How would you charge for all the other stuff telephone calls, travel to and from thier office, buying links, paid inclusion,licences for word trackers and search tools etc.

I just want to make a clear proposal and not lose money, while not seeming amateur by listing each phoine call and mile travelled each month. Also need to account all this costs next September - is there a set way to log and pass on costs like these when charging by the hour?

What do you think?

[sullen]

I usually just break it down into categories:

link building - x hours
content writing - x hours
project admin and planning - x hours

...and then add the actual costs incurred separately (in a lump if there are lots of them). Mileage I would charge at the UK IR rate which is 40p a mile (though I don't usually bother actually). phone calls come under "project admin".

more detail than that and you end up spending 2 hours or more on the breakdowns when you could be doing something useful.

added: I don't think that itemising all these charges looks amateur though. Quite the opposite, imo: you are a professional, not a sales guy.

[Automan Empire]

Don't allow the itemization to become a chiseling tool in the client's hand; otherwise they deserve at least a crude breakdown of how their money is being spent.

[dfud]

I agree with everything said above. But I don't charge for mileage or phone calls. I do charge for the time they take however.

I figure all businesses incur office expenses such as phone calls and non-reimbursed mileage. I just make my hourly rates high enough to cover these incidentals.