Practicount - Charging by the hour
Thread poster: Roddy Tannahill
Roddy Tannahill
Roddy Tannahill  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:57
French to English
+ ...
Dec 2, 2006

Hi - I've just bought Practicount, and while it's great for counting words in Word / PDF and so on, I don't know how to get it to charge for files that I charge by the hour for (i.e. proof-reading).

Does anyone know how to do this? Any help would be much appreciated.

R

Sorry guys: I've had a flurry of suggestions about how to keep time, but that's not actually what I want to know. What I want
... See more
Hi - I've just bought Practicount, and while it's great for counting words in Word / PDF and so on, I don't know how to get it to charge for files that I charge by the hour for (i.e. proof-reading).

Does anyone know how to do this? Any help would be much appreciated.

R

Sorry guys: I've had a flurry of suggestions about how to keep time, but that's not actually what I want to know. What I want to know is how to use Practicount's "hours" facility to actually invoice a customer. How do I choose a file type to associate with 'hours', and how do I make the file counter see a file as proof-read file rather than a file that has been translated?

[Edited at 2006-12-03 23:00]
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Henry Hinds
Henry Hinds  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 06:57
English to Spanish
+ ...
In memoriam
Gotta watch? Dec 3, 2006

If you're charging by the hour, just use your watch!

[Editado a las 2006-12-03 02:09]


 
Eva Blanar
Eva Blanar  Identity Verified
Hungary
Local time: 13:57
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Actually: how to charge by the hour? Dec 3, 2006

I was already to ask this question:
when you charge by the hour, do you just look at your watch at the beginning and end of the work or do you record just the "clean" hours spent with editing or proofreading? Web searches included, I assume - but the time spent with incoming emails, phone calls, skype, coffee etc. shall be deducted, I think... And that's already quite a lot of extra work.

The reason why I already wanted to ask this is that I work very fast (at least when the
... See more
I was already to ask this question:
when you charge by the hour, do you just look at your watch at the beginning and end of the work or do you record just the "clean" hours spent with editing or proofreading? Web searches included, I assume - but the time spent with incoming emails, phone calls, skype, coffee etc. shall be deducted, I think... And that's already quite a lot of extra work.

The reason why I already wanted to ask this is that I work very fast (at least when the translation is a good one) and I am afraid I am at a disadvantage if I take actually just the time spent with it. (It already happened that I updated a previous translation and I know that _my_ proofreader charged more hours than myself, just for some minimum changes in the final text.)

But coming back to the initial question: whenever possible, I simply charge by the number of words edited (for myself: 1000 words per hour is my standard for EN + FR source languages), expressed in hours (for my client).

Of course, this does not work when a previous translation shall be updated - it would be too troublesome to look up all the deletions and additions, the changes in formatting - hence my question above. I'd be interested in your views on that.
Shall I buy a chess watch?
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Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:57
Member (2002)
German to English
+ ...
Charging by the hour in Practicount Dec 3, 2006

What I do is keep a small pad of paper and a pen at the side of me and write down the exact time in hours and minutes when I start. When I answer the phone or get up for a cup of coffee, I record the time in the same way underneath that.

When I come back to my desk I do the same again, and so on. At the end I do a bit of arithmetic.

However, Caro's question concerns the functioning of Practicount, not how to add up time.

Caro, I also use Practicount. I have
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What I do is keep a small pad of paper and a pen at the side of me and write down the exact time in hours and minutes when I start. When I answer the phone or get up for a cup of coffee, I record the time in the same way underneath that.

When I come back to my desk I do the same again, and so on. At the end I do a bit of arithmetic.

However, Caro's question concerns the functioning of Practicount, not how to add up time.

Caro, I also use Practicount. I have never known the answer to this question, either, but I have just experimented. Before clicking on "Count statistics" you put in your hourly rate, e.g. "50", and change "Units" at the end to "hours".

When it has finished counting, the screen which you see states "hours" and "50", but also says at the bottom "EUR 0.00", because it could not count the hours. That is precisely the problem.

However, you can now actually edit the screen in front of you! If you simply go to the "0" under "hours", delete it with the normal "delete" key on your keyboard, and change it to "2", for example, you will see "100" and the corresponding amount of VAT appear at the bottom of the screen, and you can then continue as normal to create your invoice.

Astrid

[Edited at 2006-12-03 07:47]

P.S. After you have typed "2", you have to press the return key. Then it changes.

[Edited at 2006-12-03 07:48]
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Ehab Tantawy
Ehab Tantawy  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:57
Member (2006)
English to Arabic
+ ...
ْXNote Stopwatch Dec 3, 2006

Hi All

Actually i worked for more than 6 months for an Online Translation-Proofreading Project, i used XNote Stopwatch program.

XNote Stopwatch is a versatile and flexible multi-functional digital stopwatch/countdown timer software to measure time intervals in decimal seconds, seconds, minutes and hours.

The program window could be at the top right/left corner of the screen, then you can work easily, when you stop working or go to away of your desk, just
... See more
Hi All

Actually i worked for more than 6 months for an Online Translation-Proofreading Project, i used XNote Stopwatch program.

XNote Stopwatch is a versatile and flexible multi-functional digital stopwatch/countdown timer software to measure time intervals in decimal seconds, seconds, minutes and hours.

The program window could be at the top right/left corner of the screen, then you can work easily, when you stop working or go to away of your desk, just click PAUSE, if finished click STOP, also the working hours, including PAUSES and STOPS, will be saved in a table transferable into Excel sheet for archiving, and so on.

Below is the direct link to download the program

http://www.xnotestopwatch.com/xnsw140.zip

I hope this Helps.

Regards,
Ehab
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William [Bill] Gray
William [Bill] Gray  Identity Verified
Norway
Local time: 13:57
Member (2006)
English
+ ...
I use ExactSpent Dec 3, 2006

An alternative to Ehad's suggestion. I use this little program (cost me 19 euros).

I really like the interface, and the hotkey system. Also, it still works even when its not loaded! I have used it especially for multiple projects which need timing, and have even experimented with a category for "coffee breaks" and "phone interuptions" just to discover how much time is taken up on these.

So you see it has good time management assessment funtions also. Try it free for
... See more
An alternative to Ehad's suggestion. I use this little program (cost me 19 euros).

I really like the interface, and the hotkey system. Also, it still works even when its not loaded! I have used it especially for multiple projects which need timing, and have even experimented with a category for "coffee breaks" and "phone interuptions" just to discover how much time is taken up on these.

So you see it has good time management assessment funtions also. Try it free for 30 days. I liked it so much I bought it within four days! I often work on several different jobs at a time, only one of which is translation, so it works well for me.

http://www.exactspent.com/



[Edited at 2006-12-03 20:45]
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Margaret Schroeder
Margaret Schroeder  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 06:57
Spanish to English
+ ...
Simple time tracking freeware, shareware and inexpensive programs Dec 3, 2006

See
http://www.proz.com/topic/59660
http://www.proz.com/topic/54578
http://www.proz.com/topic/38401


 


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Practicount - Charging by the hour






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