Revisions Log in Billing Client for Offsite Work

Hello all, I have a billing question re: the effectiveness of using WordPress revision logs as proof of work done offsite. I need to go into some detail as the background info is important, so please forgive the wordiness of this post.

Here’s the situation: I have a client who is challenging my offsite hours & invoice for her WordPress website. Up until now, I’ve billed her on the honor system at varying intervals. She’s by nature very high-maintenance and demanding, with constant changes about what she wants her website and graphics to look like, but she has always paid me and never raised any issues. She has the means and has always promised to want to pay me for my time and I’ve always gone over and above. We are also old friends, so things have been somewhat loosey-goosey for lack of a better term, however both of us have been ok with that.

In early January I let her know that I won’t be able to spend as much time on her work due to my day job having become more stressful and also personal/family issue limiting my bandwidth, and that I’d really like to finally wrap up the website and publish it. So I set some boundaries both on time and on rounds of changes just so we could finalize the site, with the understanding that changes can always be made by her or someone else after the site is up. She was upset/annoyed by this and my overall pulling back on time spent with/for her, but I held the boundaries as I was truly burning out on this seemingly never-ending project, and I told her that. She is now challenging the offsite hours I billed her saying they’re too high and has even retained an attorney because this is all too “emotionally distressing” for her. That attorney called me to say my friend/client is sticker-shocked and can’t understand how I could have possibly worked all those hours. I explained things as best I could. I also mentioned to her attorney that WordPress has a date/time stamp for revisions to each page showing how long I spent on each revision. Two days later he wrote me to offer a settlement which amounts to 1/4 of my invoice. He also said that the time-stamps don’t prove anything since I could have just opened and saved the page just to show that I was working on it. I’ve since retained my own attorney but he’s not familiar with graphic and web design billing, so I need to provide as much documentation for him as possible so he can include it in our reply to the other attorney. I’ve entered all the WP log times for each page in an Excel spreadsheet and calculated the exact hours (which actually ended up exceeding the time I had billed for.) I am willing to settle the bill for a reasonable amount just so we don’t have to end up in court, but the offered amount is not a fair and reasonable one.

My question is: Have any of you ever used the WP revision log for billing, and do you think this is a reasonable way to measure and account for work done? I’d appreciate any insight or suggestions you may be able to offer, as I’ve never been in this position before and am worried that I’ll end up having to accept payment for only 25% of my time.

Many thanks in advance,

Nancy

• This topic was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by nancy73.
• This topic was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by nancy73.
• This topic was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by nancy73.