Guides · 4 min read
Billing travel time on a move: planned or actual?
Travel from the depot to the customer, then between addresses, can be a large part of the day. How you bill it changes everything for customer trust and for your crews' pay.
Option 1: actual time
You bill the time actually spent on the road. It is easy to explain, but the customer pays for traffic jams, refuelling or the detour to buy tape. The final amount becomes unpredictable, and this is often the line where the argument starts.
Option 2: a flat fee
A fixed travel charge, whatever the distance. The customer knows what they pay, but the fee is too high for a short trip and does not cover a long one. With several addresses in one day, it no longer means much.
Option 3: the time planned in the quote
For each leg, you calculate the normal duration in advance, without traffic, using a route planner, and fix it in the quote. That is the duration billed, whatever happens on the road. Actual time is recorded, but for information only.
The customer knows the cost of travel from the quote. A late start or a traffic jam is neither billed to the customer nor paid to the crew: nobody gains from dawdling.
Per person and per vehicle
A trip does not cost the same with two people in a van as with four people and two trucks. The fairest formula: planned duration × (rate per person × people + rate per vehicle × vehicles), leg by leg.
For the customer, count the crew planned in the quote. For the crew or subcontractor, count the people actually present on that leg, never more than planned.
A separate line on the statement
Whatever you choose, keep travel on a separate line from time on site. The customer immediately sees what they pay for the work and what they pay for the road, and both are disputed far less when they are not mixed.
Our recommendation
The time planned in the quote, per person and per vehicle, on a separate line. It is the most predictable method for the customer and the fairest for your crews, and it is what Movetrace applies by default.