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Agency asking for credit note because end client does not agree with reported time spent
Thread poster: DorienVdA
DorienVdA
DorienVdA  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:49
English to Dutch
+ ...
Jul 8, 2020

Hello colleagues,

A well-known agency is asking me to issue a credit note of an invoice they approved & paid because the end-client does not agree with the reported time spent.

The assignments for this end-client always require a lot of research (list of terms regarding diverse subjects, no full sentences, often very specialized e.g. types of screws) but they were paying my regular rate per word so at a certain point I informed the agency I would no longer work for thi
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Hello colleagues,

A well-known agency is asking me to issue a credit note of an invoice they approved & paid because the end-client does not agree with the reported time spent.

The assignments for this end-client always require a lot of research (list of terms regarding diverse subjects, no full sentences, often very specialized e.g. types of screws) but they were paying my regular rate per word so at a certain point I informed the agency I would no longer work for this client since I noticed it did not make sense financially (my hourly rate is 40 USD & I would spend 6 hours to earn that same 40 USD via the per word basis).

The PM of the agency proposed to pay me per hour for these assignments in the future from then on, and I agreed. For the first assignment with lower wordcount there was no issue, I got paid for my actual time spent. One of translations was reviewed & the reviewer even wrote that hopefully the translator had been paid per hour due the amount of research required.

Now for the next assignment things went differently, the end-client complained about the reported time spent a few days after I delivered & reported my hours. At first the agency told me to not worry and said they would pay me. I had to provide explanations about the time spent & went into detail about my research methods etc. so they could explain this all to the client.

Since the PM had already agreed to the reported hours & sent me the PO before the client protested, I created the invoice, which was later also approved by the agency. I don't think they could still undo this approval so yesterday the payment was processed. Now today they tell me they could not convice the client & I need to send them a credit note of about 60% of what I received.

Apparently they invoiced the client about 30% of the time I spent, and say they can only pay me about 40%.

If I calculate the payment on a per word basis, it would be the same as what they invoiced to the client.

I would like to hear some opinions about this & advice on how to proceed... Thanks in advance.
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:49
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Dorien Jul 8, 2020

DorienVdA wrote:
My hourly rate is 40 USD & I would spend 6 hours to earn that same 40 USD via the per word basis.
...
They say they can only pay me about 40%.


It looks to me that if you were to agree to this, then it would have been as if you had worked at USD 16 per hour instead of the usual USD 6.70 per hour. So even if you were to agree to this, you'd still earn more than you would have earned for this client in the past.

It seems that both the client and the agency misjudged how long it takes to do these jobs (or perhaps only the agency), and must have assumed that you were only exaggerating for dramatic effect when they agreed to pay you hourly, but now they realise their mistake. I think you should take this as a sign that they are unlikely to be willing to pay you what you're worth in future, so the question becomes: what (if anything) should you pay for damage control?

Do I understand correctly that you would still get work from this agency even if you no longer accept jobs from this particular client?

The fact that they already paid does not really make this any different from a situation in which a client tries to negotiate a lower rate before you issue the invoice. It simply makes it more inconvenient. The type of decision is the same: should you give a once-off discount now, for future benefits? How much work will you get from this agency in future, if you no longer work on jobs from this particular client? The percentage of the discount is not the issue, but the actual amount you'd end up "paying" for what is essentially going to be a marketing expense.


[Edited at 2020-07-08 06:09 GMT]


Sheila Wilson
 
Joakim Braun
Joakim Braun  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 15:49
German to Swedish
+ ...
Amount? Jul 8, 2020

If this is an agency you otherwise have a good relationship with, if there is a stream of assignments and it's not a vast amount of money, I would suggest being lenient, remembering the experience and accepting no further per-hour work from them.

Since the agency approved your invoice and apparently feels that a reasonable amount of time was spent, I do feel they should shoulder most of the financial burden (say 2/3). Apparently they misjudged the situation or didn't communicate pro
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If this is an agency you otherwise have a good relationship with, if there is a stream of assignments and it's not a vast amount of money, I would suggest being lenient, remembering the experience and accepting no further per-hour work from them.

Since the agency approved your invoice and apparently feels that a reasonable amount of time was spent, I do feel they should shoulder most of the financial burden (say 2/3). Apparently they misjudged the situation or didn't communicate properly with the end client. That's part of the middle-man risk of running an agency, and what they are paid for. But if this is a one-time occurrence I would tend to meet them part-way.

Of course, legally it sounds like you can collect the debt if you want to.
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Yolanda Broad
 
Jo Macdonald
Jo Macdonald  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:49
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
Charging for research vs not honoring an agreement Jul 8, 2020

Hi Dorien
Personally I don't charge extra for research as it's all part of the learning process. After doing research I'll have learnt something new, will know what that term is next time, and have it in my TM for quick reference.

I know, out-of-context lists of obscure parts can take quite a bit longer than other jobs, but some jobs go quicker, others slower, some earn more, some less. That's the way it goes.

Imo you were right to tell your client you wouldn't be
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Hi Dorien
Personally I don't charge extra for research as it's all part of the learning process. After doing research I'll have learnt something new, will know what that term is next time, and have it in my TM for quick reference.

I know, out-of-context lists of obscure parts can take quite a bit longer than other jobs, but some jobs go quicker, others slower, some earn more, some less. That's the way it goes.

Imo you were right to tell your client you wouldn't be taking any more of these jobs because they're too time consuming, but it sounds like you're not specialized in the field so the jobs perhaps take even longer than they would for someone who knows more about screws for example.

If this is the case and you have other work and can refuse this, why take jobs that aren't in your field?

If the job is not in a field you know perhaps you should accept it will take longer and you'll earn less.

Having said that I'll take my devil's advocate hat off now and say I think your client is behaving extremely unprofessionally, basically not honoring an agreement and asking for a discount after the job is done and delivered.

I would be very wary of working with people who behave this way. If they want to give their client a discount that's entirely their business and they definitely have no right to tell you to issue a credit note. They might politely ask you for a discount after admitting they've made a mess of the PM job, but if you don't agree will honor their agreement with you and pay in full, although they obviously can't continue to pay you an hourly rate for these jobs as it's not feasible with this client and will have to look for a more specialized translator.

In the end it really boils down to what you want and feel comfortable with.

If you feel you were right to charge for time required for research in a field you're perhaps not expert in and your client agreed to pay you as much as 6 times your usual rate and you don't mind losing the client as they ask for discounts after delivery, stick to your guns and get paid.

If on the other hand you think perhaps you should have refused the job as it's not your specialization, or should have accepted a lower rate because of the learning curve and more research time required, and want to still work with this client, meet them halfway with a price both of you agree is fair for a job well-done by you but badly-managed by them.
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Dan Lucas
Aline Amorim
MollyRose
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
Peter van der Hoek
DorienVdA
Yvonne Gallagher
 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 14:49
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
This is the client's error Jul 8, 2020

I think you need to be clear about who is at fault here -- and it isn't you! The agency essentially wants to renege on the contract. As said above, any discount would be purely a marketing offer on your part. For that to be worthwhile, you have to be convinced that the agency is going to be worth this investment in them.

I had a similar circumstance once, with the owner of a boutique agency who had completely misjudged the time needed for a long editing job, which took me 22 hours.
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I think you need to be clear about who is at fault here -- and it isn't you! The agency essentially wants to renege on the contract. As said above, any discount would be purely a marketing offer on your part. For that to be worthwhile, you have to be convinced that the agency is going to be worth this investment in them.

I had a similar circumstance once, with the owner of a boutique agency who had completely misjudged the time needed for a long editing job, which took me 22 hours. They were quite distraught and I took pity on them as they'd always been fair to me. That was almost 10 years ago and they've been a great client ever since.

I don't suppose it's likely you'll work for this end client again. So, is the other work you get from the agency of sufficient value for you to take a hit to keep them sweet? If it is, I'd suggest you offer a credit note, but not of the amount they want. They're probably exaggerating anyway. Say, 25%? But of course, that decision is for you to make. If you doubt you have a great future together now, just refuse to budge. It is your right.
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Christopher Schröder
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Aline Amorim
Yolanda Broad
MollyRose
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
Philip Lees
 
Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 16:49
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
Do what they want, if Jul 8, 2020

...it is worth keeping the agency as client. You didn't mention how much money is involved here. I wouldn't except any more jobs from this end-client. Let others take them.
Don't you use MT? MT often knows what these obscure parts are and saves you a lot of research.


 
Kaspars Melkis
Kaspars Melkis  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:49
English to Latvian
+ ...
agency is clearly wrong here Jul 8, 2020

I would expect the agency to stand more firm with the end client because the time spent on research was justified and there was no reason to reduce the fee just because end client didn't like it. After all, isn't it the mail reason why agencies exist? They deal with the issues related to end clients so that the translators doesn't have to.

If they failed in their negotiations, it is agency's risk and they should not request the translator to reimburse their losses as they clearly do
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I would expect the agency to stand more firm with the end client because the time spent on research was justified and there was no reason to reduce the fee just because end client didn't like it. After all, isn't it the mail reason why agencies exist? They deal with the issues related to end clients so that the translators doesn't have to.

If they failed in their negotiations, it is agency's risk and they should not request the translator to reimburse their losses as they clearly don't share their profits with the translator either.

Research is the most important part of a translator's job. It doesn't matter if you use the MT and have suggestions that might turn out correct. You still need to do full research to confirm and validate the correctness of MT output. I cannot imagine how MT would save time unless you skip the validation part and deliver lower quality.

In this case, however, the translator could have contacted the agency when it became apparent that the research will take considerably more time than initially thought. It would help to avoid unnecessary surprises and make better decisions. In such cases, it is important to not feel pressured by the deadline. It is better to send the message and tell that you will continue working only when the project manager responds. If the response arrives too late, the deadline has to be respectively adjusted.
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Sheila Wilson
MollyRose
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
DorienVdA
DorienVdA  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:49
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Some answers to your questions Jul 8, 2020

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your input. Some more info based on your questions:

-The agency knew some parts of the translation were not in my field of specialization as I've talked to them about this several times, for this assignment & for previous assignments. Due to the nature of the end-client though there is a very wide variety of different specializations in one file (construction, sports etc.).

-MT does not help much with this type of source. Sometimes t
... See more
Hi everyone,

Thanks for your input. Some more info based on your questions:

-The agency knew some parts of the translation were not in my field of specialization as I've talked to them about this several times, for this assignment & for previous assignments. Due to the nature of the end-client though there is a very wide variety of different specializations in one file (construction, sports etc.).

-MT does not help much with this type of source. Sometimes they find help from a second translator & I get to review but each time it has been a catastrophy because the translator decided to used MT & not do any research.

-The agency does think I will still work for the end-client. I won't be able to accept though. Since this issue arose, the agency & end-client have now agreed on what they believe to be an acceptable time spent, and I know their expectancies are not realistic at all. I would like to keep working for one of their other clients though.

-The agency was well aware of the time it was taking me & of the difficulty as the deadline had to be postponed several times & I told them why. Each deadline this end-client proposes is unrealistic & they always keep pressuring to accept their unrealistic deadlines.

-If I accept, my loss would be 4.000 USD
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Kaspars Melkis
 
Tina Vonhof (X)
Tina Vonhof (X)
Canada
Local time: 08:49
Dutch to English
+ ...
Meet them halfway Jul 8, 2020

First, the agency is in the wrong. You had an agreement and they have already paid you, so they can't really ask you to give it back. It's really up to them to negotiate with the end client and potentially assume the loss if it comes to that. You could insist on that but be prepared that you may lose the agency.

However, if you want to keep the agency as a client, you could meet them halfway and return a percentage (maybe 25-30%) of the payment. Or, if you want to keep both the agen
... See more
First, the agency is in the wrong. You had an agreement and they have already paid you, so they can't really ask you to give it back. It's really up to them to negotiate with the end client and potentially assume the loss if it comes to that. You could insist on that but be prepared that you may lose the agency.

However, if you want to keep the agency as a client, you could meet them halfway and return a percentage (maybe 25-30%) of the payment. Or, if you want to keep both the agency and the end client, you could offer to recalculate your invoice at a lower hourly rate and keep it there from now on for this end client only. Another possibility is to go back to charging per word but at a slightly higher rate than before, so that your per word rate compares more favorably with your hourly rate. No-one can quarrel with the word count.

Your hourly rate seems very high to me - on your website you say that you charge EUR 25 per hour for various language combinations, that's about USD 21. You could make it $25 and it's still a very good rate.

I agree with others that, if a job requires that much research, maybe you're not the right person to take it on. Are you even enjoying it? Could the agency perhaps assign some parts of the work to another translator who is more familiar with that material? You could always offer to proofread.




[Edited at 2020-07-08 16:12 GMT]
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 14:49
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
USD 4k? For their failure to uphold the agreement you had? Jul 8, 2020

DorienVdA wrote:
-If I accept, my loss would be 4.000 USD

That's a pretty large sum for a freelancer to kiss goodbye to. It's going to hurt, even if you can slim down the figure somewhat. They must be worth a lot to you for you to even be considering taking the hit.


DorienVdA
 
DorienVdA
DorienVdA  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:49
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
indeed Jul 8, 2020

Sheila Wilson wrote:

DorienVdA wrote:
-If I accept, my loss would be 4.000 USD

That's a pretty large sum for a freelancer to kiss goodbye to. It's going to hurt, even if you can slim down the figure somewhat. They must be worth a lot to you for you to even be considering taking the hit.


I know, I was at no point thinking to agree with their original proposal. I just had a call with them & it was clear they weren't really expecting me to agree to this. They then proposed 100 hours which I also refused. I have some time now to make a counter-proposal.


 
Christel Zipfel
Christel Zipfel  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:49
Member (2004)
Italian to German
+ ...
40 USD "very high hourly rate"? Jul 8, 2020

Tina Vonhof wrote:

Your hourly rate seems very high to me - on your website you say that you charge EUR 25 per hour for various language combinations, that's about USD 21. You could make it $25 and it's still a very good rate.



and 25 is still worse, of course. Everyone should be aware that, after taxes and expenses, with such an amount, they'll get what earns a cleaning lady or even less. I'm speechless!


Vera Schoen
Kunik
DorienVdA
 
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 18:49
English to Arabic
+ ...
How about this, in exchange for any discount (%) you may allow? Jul 8, 2020

Go ahead and set a few numbers (total monthly volume, maximum volume from this "bad" client, minimum volume from that other "good" client, and any other quota you deem fit) for yourself from said agency, and ask them to document it all in a written, legally-binding contract.

Should they refuse the same, wish them good luck with another translator and walk away.


 
Daryo
Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:49
Serbian to English
+ ...
Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil Jul 9, 2020

Christel Zipfel wrote:

Tina Vonhof wrote:

Your hourly rate seems very high to me - on your website you say that you charge EUR 25 per hour for various language combinations, that's about USD 21. You could make it $25 and it's still a very good rate.



and 25 is still worse, of course. Everyone should be aware that, after taxes and expenses, with such an amount, they'll get what earns a cleaning lady or even less. I'm speechless!



"they'll get what earns a cleaning lady or even less"

same story about 30 years ago!

There used to be - in some prehistoric computer times - a thing called CompuServe (my first email was a CompuServe address) It used to have "forums" - but nothing like today's forums, more like simplistic bulletin boards.

One forums was for linguists / translators called FLEFO (Foreign Language & Education Forum) - I still remember the post of one exasperated translator who was seriously considering quitting the translation business altogether, as cleaning ladies were making more money!

https://www.proz.com/forum/internet_for_translators/212716-compuserve_flefo_archives_anywhere.html


 
DorienVdA
DorienVdA  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:49
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
25 EUR = 28 USD, not 21 USD Jul 13, 2020

...and when I put these rates in my outdated profile in 2013, it was almost 35 USD. The last time I had to use ProZ to send in a quote for a job was in 2016, during a slow period. There have been periods in the past years I've had to refuse several jobs per day that came straight to my mailbox, giving me the liberty to pick the best ones & stick to my rates.

We don't need to accept cleaning lady rates indeed.


 
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Agency asking for credit note because end client does not agree with reported time spent







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