Tradies Fees

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#1951497 4-Feb-2018 17:05

Completely normal. Had it myself (including paying hourly rate for the apprentice also) when hiring a sparky recently to re-do the power entry into the property.

They have bills to pay too.. :)

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RickW

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#1951525 4-Feb-2018 17:34

Batman:
apprentices are paid less than min wage

Not everyone is like that. We start our apprentices on $20 an hour, we also provide all tools and equipment for them and our cost works out to be just over 30 an hour including acc levies, holiday pay, sick pay, ppe and basic training courses before we let them onsite. I do believe that we are the exception to the rule but I don’t know many people that could live comfortably on $20 an hour.

pctek

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#1951567 4-Feb-2018 19:21

Actually way down South we found they charged $1 per km.

here, up in Auckland, no.

Husband never did, no callouts, no public holiday/weekend fees, and he never had staff so apprentices didn't come in to it.

He went by flat fees instead. As he said, sometimes a seemingly simple thing could take ages, so by hour....he wasn't that mean.

blakamin

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#1951584 4-Feb-2018 19:56

Yorkshirekid:

And they came twice - once to spec and the second to fix.

Were you expecting a psychic? They don't know it needs whatever parts until they look, and then they have to go and get it.

Yorkshirekid:

I'm happy to pay the trade fee; skilled ppl should get paid. It's just the add-on's that are the nark.

And that's how apprentices become tradies. If you didn't want one, you could say, and then the guy probably wouldn't have even turned up and you'd need to find another tradie... It's not like they can just leave them on the side of the road. And then you'd be paying more because there'd be less tradies and 5x the work and they could charge 5x the money.

Yorkshirekid:

Nobody pays me to drive to work.

They don't get paid to drive to work either, but once they are "at work" (7am to 5pm, when their private vehicles are at the yard, bosses house, on call, whatever) they still have to get to a job. Do you work in 3-10 different places in a day?

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#1951617 4-Feb-2018 21:59

Something to consider. ALL business expenses are charged to the customer, one way or another, otherwise, they wouldn't make any money.

I don't know if the second guy was required, don't know what the job entailed. I think the fairest way, is what another poster mentioned, that you charge for the second guy, the rate at which he is billed, times the time he spent actually working, or that made the job faster.

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#1951680 5-Feb-2018 07:06

ZollyMonsta:

Completely normal. Had it myself (including paying hourly rate for the apprentice also) when hiring a sparky recently to re-do the power entry into the property.

They have bills to pay too.. :)

Yes. Whether its a rate for this and a rate for that, or a one cost hiding everything, they have bills to pay. Thats why we pay $80 per hour even though the tradie is an employee earning far less than that

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#1951726 5-Feb-2018 08:43

chevrolux: Health and safety costs money. So yes.

So do a lot of other business costs. Why make "Health & Safety" a separate item? Does the customer have the option of requesting a Careless Friday job?

The actual H&S levy paid to the Government is 8 cents per $100 of payroll.

It brings to mind the electricians charging for the CoC or ESC as if they had the option of walking off the job without testing.

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networkn

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#1951731 5-Feb-2018 08:57

Bung:
chevrolux: Health and safety costs money. So yes.

So do a lot of other business costs. Why make "Health & Safety" a separate item? Does the customer have the option of requesting a Careless Friday job?

The actual H&S levy paid to the Government is 8 cents per $100 of payroll.

It brings to mind the electricians charging for the CoC or ESC as if they had the option of walking off the job without testing.

That's a great point.

tdgeek

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#1951733 5-Feb-2018 08:59

Bung:
chevrolux: Health and safety costs money. So yes.

So do a lot of other business costs. Why make "Health & Safety" a separate item? Does the customer have the option of requesting a Careless Friday job?

The actual H&S levy paid to the Government is 8 cents per $100 of payroll.

It brings to mind the electricians charging for the CoC or ESC as if they had the option of walking off the job without testing.

Marketing hat on, to allow them to show a forced expense and reduce their own charge so it looks better.

Dulouz

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#1951766 5-Feb-2018 09:20

@blackjack17 Don't forget the $5.00 invoice fee

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reven

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#1951777 5-Feb-2018 09:34

chevrolux: Yes absolutely.

Did you take the heatpump to them to get it fixed? Nope. Distance is irrelevant, they need to standardise fees.

Health and safety costs money. So yes.

completely disagree here. they always need to travel, so that should be factored in; not an additional fee. The Warehouose doesnt charge you a "landlord renting space fee". But you should, since they have to pay rates and stuff!!!

For any type of business that needs to do travel to do business, they shouldnt charge a travel fee. Unless its a great distance, say 20km or more.

I know a lot of tradies do charge this, but I tend to avoid them if possible. I once got charged $180 for travel for a tradie that came 8 days. Thats completely unreasonable IMO. Needless to say I argued it, got it down to $50, and never used that tradeperson again.

People also tend to use tradies that are near to them, my builder lives across the road, my plasterer lives one street away. Needless to say they dont charge travel fees :)

Regarding the apprentice though, yes they should be charged out, at a much lower rate, but should still be invoiced.

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#1951814 5-Feb-2018 09:48

reven:

chevrolux: Yes absolutely.

Did you take the heatpump to them to get it fixed? Nope. Distance is irrelevant, they need to standardise fees.

Health and safety costs money. So yes.
'

completely disagree here. they always need to travel, so that should be factored in; not an additional fee. The Warehouose doesnt charge you a "landlord renting space fee". But you should, since they have to pay rates and stuff!!!

For any type of business that needs to do travel to do business, they shouldnt charge a travel fee. Unless its a great distance, say 20km or more.

I know a lot of tradies do charge this, but I tend to avoid them if possible. I once got charged $180 for travel for a tradie that came 8 days. Thats completely unreasonable IMO. Needless to say I argued it, got it down to $50, and never used that tradeperson again.

People also tend to use tradies that are near to them, my builder lives across the road, my plasterer lives one street away. Needless to say they dont charge travel fees :)

Regarding the apprentice though, yes they should be charged out, at a much lower rate, but should still be invoiced.

You are paying the travel fee no matter what. Doesnt matter if it's on the bill, or in the labour rate. Either way its not a custom fee for you, its a standard fee that recovers the costs. The costs for a long trip isn't much more then a short trip fuelwise, but who pays the wages for that one hour trip?

Unlike rates, stationary etc, travel fee is a reasonable fee if they dont bill you the labour rate including travel time

gregmcc

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#1951816 5-Feb-2018 09:50

Bung:
chevrolux: Health and safety costs money. So yes.

So do a lot of other business costs. Why make "Health & Safety" a separate item? Does the customer have the option of requesting a Careless Friday job?

The actual H&S levy paid to the Government is 8 cents per $100 of payroll.

It brings to mind the electricians charging for the CoC or ESC as if they had the option of walking off the job without testing.

The H&S levy is the ACC levy, what about all the demands worksafe place on employers, there is no actual levy but there is quite a large compliance factor. Hazard ID's safety inspections of equipment etc. all of which has to be paid for somehow.

The "Tradie" is just making sure that these charges are noted as Govt compliance costs.

As far as an CoC or ESE charge, these are legal documents required by law, lawyers charge for legally required documents, why shouldn't anyone else who is required to generate a legal document make a charge for it?

At the end of the day separating out these charges highlights how much of the hourly rate is eaten up by govt compliance

cadman

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#1951849 5-Feb-2018 10:41

gregmcc:

At the end of the day separating out these charges highlights how much of the hourly rate is eaten up by govt compliance

Not when it's on top of the hourly rate. If they mentioned that the charge out rate comprised of x for this and x for that, they'd meet less resistance. But they wouldn't do that because they mostly don't actually know. It's easy to slap a flat levy on everything. Overheads should be apportioned into the charge out rate - that's how reasonable people arrive at their charge out rate in the first place.

What's irked me in the past is the blatant double-dipping. It's been my experience that some tradesmen believe travel between jobs for different customers should be paid for by both customers concurrently. You don't mind a time + mileage charge for travel to your job - that's quite fair and reasonable. But what I object to is being charged for a return journey they never took because they went straight to another job from mine.

mattwnz

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#1952498 6-Feb-2018 16:24

gregmcc:

Bung:
chevrolux: Health and safety costs money. So yes.

So do a lot of other business costs. Why make "Health & Safety" a separate item? Does the customer have the option of requesting a Careless Friday job?

The actual H&S levy paid to the Government is 8 cents per $100 of payroll.

It brings to mind the electricians charging for the CoC or ESC as if they had the option of walking off the job without testing.

The H&S levy is the ACC levy, what about all the demands worksafe place on employers, there is no actual levy but there is quite a large compliance factor. Hazard ID's safety inspections of equipment etc. all of which has to be paid for somehow.

The "Tradie" is just making sure that these charges are noted as Govt compliance costs.

As far as an CoC or ESE charge, these are legal documents required by law, lawyers charge for legally required documents, why shouldn't anyone else who is required to generate a legal document make a charge for it?

At the end of the day separating out these charges highlights how much of the hourly rate is eaten up by govt compliance

So do you think they are trying to make a point by seperating it out and highlighting it? I would have thought if they were doing that, it would need to be the actual amount. There are lots of other compliance costs that businesses have to pay and pass onto the customer. But that is usually built into the hourly rate or fees. The hourly rate usually covers overheads as part of running the business. Imagine if a retail shop started charging all these fees as addons to the product price.

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