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Ask HN: Is it ethical to submit falsified hours to a client?

5 points by makk ↗ HN
I think the answer to this one is obvious. But a colleague has strongly disagreed with me and challenged me to "ask other developers" what they think.

The specific question is this:

Assuming a time-and-materials contract with a client, is it ethical to judge the value of one's own work, compare that to one's hourly rate with the client, and then submit hours to the client reflecting that self-perceived value when that means submitting more hours to the client than was actually worked.

I'm not asking about the inverse, where one decides to write off some hours. I'm also not asking about rounding one's hours up to the nearest tenth or quarter of an hour, or the like, to account for task switching etc.

7 comments

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midgetjones
Wow, I'd be surprised if anyone sided with your colleague.

If they found bugs in the software, would he then accept that his perceived value was too high, and give the client some money back?

forrestbrazeal
No, that's not ethical.

If you believe that your value to the client is greater than your current hourly rate, you need to raise your rates. If nobody will hire you at those rates, then your value to the client is not as high as you thought.

davelnewton
How is this even a question?!
midgetjones
I'm still nonplussed by it. If this person is overbilling hours because they think the work is worth more, it's only going to make them look worse because they couldn't complete it in the quoted time.
Taylor_OD
No. However if you know you are delivering more value in an hour than your rate dictates you should increase your rates.
krapp
No.

You're not being paid to judge the value of your own work - the contract specifies the value of your work in literal and unambiguous terms. That's what contracts are for. There's no such thing as "self-percieved value" in this context. It doesn't exist.

You work n hours, you bill n hours, at the rate already agreed upon. And if you feel that rate hour is too low, you can negotiate that with your client for the future. If they disagree with your assessment of your own self-worth, well, either deal with that or find another client.

But of course you don't get to just make up hours based on feels.

People like your colleague are the reason every freelance job has turned into a Mexican standoff.

chrisbennet
Absolutely not, never, ever. Even if the client asked me to bill extra hours I didn't work, I wouldn't.

In your colleagues parallel universe, I wonder if he/she would be OK with clients paying what they estimated the hours it took or should have taken?

My own rule of thumb is I charge the client for time that that I couldn't work for someone else. Example: Travel time. I also charge them even for "stupid mistakes". They wouldn't dock the pay of their own employees for a mistake after all.