What do you charge for extra "services"

[Thomas W. Bethel]

We get involved in lots of projects that have "extra"* services included with them. Things like going in and picking up a special piece of equipment that we don't have for use in dubbing or taking materials into and picking them up from a duplicator we use. Most of our suppliers are located 35+ miles from our facility so it is a 70 mile round trip and usually last about 1.5 hours. We have been doing a lot of this for no charge but with the cost of gasoline going up daily and some of our trips are becoming longer like 45+ miles one way I want to start charging. The per mile charge for the Federal Government and Tax purposes is currently 48.5 cents per mile. So the average trip for us would be $33.95 for the mileage and what ever I think my time is worth for the driving.

I am wondering what others on this list are charging for transportation and per hourly charge for your time when you are doing similar tasks or are you even supplying these additional services?

Thanks in advance for any and all help and suggestions.

*This is also going to be an increasing cost factor since we are now doing a lot of on location video and audio recording.

 

[Michael Fossenkemper]

well it's a little different here in the city, we don't have to drive. But even if we did, I wouldn't do the leg work. It's far cheaper to have someone else bring me what's needed than for me to get up from behind the knobs and spend 2-3 hours picking something up. I call up the company and get a price for the gear and delivery, then I call the client and say "this is how much it costs, you can either pay them directly or I can include it in the bill". To me it's not really supplying additional services, it's really the cost of doing the initial service, and you have to figure that into you bill. or if you aren't sure what those costs are, then you have to leave that door open and let the client approve these costs as they come up. But it's going to be really hard to tell a client "Oh, you owe me .48 cents a mile to pick up that microphone". Much easier to say "that mic is $125 including delivery, do you want to pay them directly or add it to the bill?"