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Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

tiempoapp.com

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Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#71

Post by pc86 »

bronson wrote: post #65
tadmilbourn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. We've actually talked to folks whose total fees were about 6% after all was said and done. It's crazy, but it does happen. In your example, what I'd ask is if the web studio would be willing to pay $400 to get that $10k weeks earlier than they otherwise would have. That might be a good cash flow outcome for them. All that being said, you're exactly right, the fee structure makes transactions of a certai…

I tried your service until I discovered you want 4% per invoice. That's 4% of my income. For comparison, California taxes (effective) were 5.8% of my income. Please mention this up front! When you add a calendar overview and a more sane pay structure, I'm happy to look again. Thanks.

They are only taking 1% - the other 2.9% is by virtue of using Stripe which has their fee. But I agree it should be disclosed more openly that you're agreeing to give them 1% right off the top by using the service.

Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#72

Post by pc86 »

kkilat wrote: post #14
pc86 wrote: post #12

I see in one of the screenshots there is a 3.9% fee - is that your fee as well as credit card processing?

Yep, that's Stripe's 2.9% credit card processing fee, and then 1% that we take. Our goal in the future is to open up and accept other online payment options that have lower overall fees, as well though. We definitely want you to keep as much of the money you've earned as possible, and get it as fast as possible!

Anything that supports ACH would be good for payments to agencies or consultancies which can often be $15-20k or more. I know Dwolla is one but I'm sure there are others.

It would also be nice to have the option to add the fee to the invoice rather than pay it out of gross. Meaning for a $100 invoice, add $3.90 to it so that I get $100 after all fees. Most clients would never go for that but on smaller invoices you can often charge reasonable processing fees.

Certainly wouldn't work for $400+ in fees, though :)

Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#75

Post by megablast »

tadmilbourn wrote: post #32
davedx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my limited experience, it's not usual. My US clients have paid with Paypal, bank transfer and check.

Those are all payment methods we plan to support in the future. Bank Transfer and Check don't have the same kind of processing costs, so that will allow us to do the payments for something more like 1% instead of 3.9%. We also hope to make the process of setting up and verifying those accounts less of a pain.

1% is still way to much for something like this.

Maybe a yearly fee of $100.

Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#76

Post by Jedd »

thenduks wrote: post #62
JoshTriplett wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about ISO standards? 2014/07/08 is completely unambiguous to everyone. Agreed; however, ISO 8601 is actually YYYY-MM-DD, not YYYY/MM/DD. So, 2014-07-08.

Ha good catch! Honestly slashes or dashes would be fine with me though :)

No no ... they wouldn't be fine with you, because no one else is using slashes, and dashes are something we should be encouraging everyone (but particularly our cousins across the pond) to embrace. :)

Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#77

Post by bronson »

pc86 wrote: post #71
bronson wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried your service until I discovered you want 4% per invoice. That's 4% of my income. For comparison, California taxes (effective) were 5.8% of my income. Please mention this up front! When you add a calendar overview and a more sane pay structure, I'm happy to look again. Thanks.

They are only taking 1% - the other 2.9% is by virtue of using Stripe which has their fee. But I agree it should be disclosed more openly that you're agreeing to give them 1% right off the top by using the service.

Except I have no desire to use Stripe. Since they force it, it seems to me they're responsible for the entire 3.9%.

Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#78

Post by bronson »

stanmancan wrote: post #68
bronson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you live in an ideal world. I often help different clients in the same day. Website bugfix in the morning, bring up bluetooth in the afternoon. It's hard to say ahead of time how long either task will take. Am I supposed to look over my commits at the end of the week and guess a weekly amount for each client? That sounds awful for everybody. Sometimes you can bill weekly, sometimes you need more granul…

I believe part of the idea is not to take on jobs that are an hour here or there, but to take on work that requires full days or weeks. Your daily/weekly wouldn't change from customer to customer.

Oh, I understand the ideal. I just don't like telling clients, "live with that problem until you've built up a full week of issues for me."

If I can take an hour to fix a previous project, and spend the rest of the day on a new project, that makes everyone happy.

Except people who think that billing by the hour is 100% wrong I suppose.

Re: Show HN: Tiempo – The fastest way to track time and get paid

#80

Post by prawn »

pw wrote: post #38

This looks like a fine product and kudos to its creators, but I hate that products like this encourage bad practices for freelancers/consultants. Basically, if you're charging in way that requires software to track how much clients owe you, you're doing it wrong. Take the advice of tptacek and patio11 and charge by the day or the week, not the hour.

Doing it wrong or just doing things a different way? There are thousands and thousands of businesses out there with web site needs that just don't justify day or week rates for their maintenance partners.

I might work on 8+ different projects in any given day and receive emails/calls from 20+ clients about tasks needing to be done. It can be brutal but I don't know that it's "doing it wrong".

Over time, I could transition to clients that mean I might bill daily/weekly but none of them would be my current clients and these current clients would still need someone to provide that service at a level with finer granularity.

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