Best Business Practices for Photographers [79]
We have a set fee per amount of supplies or services used (whether film, background paper, courier services, lighting/equipment technicians, and so on), regardless of what was actually paid for it. This is done for several reasons: 1) We keep supplies like background paper, and other expendables on hand to meet last-minute and unusual requests, and 2) for services like a courier or lighting/equipment technician/assistant, we have pre-set rates we charge for these, and in turn, negotiate our costs for that alongside our time in arranging/booking those services.
By way of example, publishing houses do not request receipts from printing plants for the cost of ink and paper, nor receipts for the wholesale prices paid on the repair of a copier, nor gasoline receipts from the delivery service who delivers the copies of the magazine.
Please discuss with us any issues you have with this policy beforehand.
This has resolved a number of client issues over the years, and, well, it's our policy—my policy. Understand that just as it's perfectly acceptable and understandable that companies across the country have policies, so too is it acceptable that you have policies! Just as you have policies such as, "I won't allow clients to curse and yell at me on the phone," or "I expect to be paid for my services because I don't work for free," so too can you establish and put forth other policies for clients to adhere to. This isn't to say that policies can never be bent or broken, but that's for you to decide when it happens. You'd be surprised at how many accounting departments will appropriately accept the fact that my policy prohibits the disclosure of proprietary supplier information to them in the form of receipts from those suppliers and will pay the bill that they were questioning.
This issue was much more of a problem during the days of film than it is now. However, an updated policy looks like this:
We have a set fee for delivery services regardless of what was actually paid for it. Examples may include delivery—sometimes delivery services must make second attempts, and we cannot know of these additional expenses until 30+ days beyond an assignment, which must have been billed before we receive the actual bill, or other surcharges may apply. We stipulate delivery charges to avoid this paperwork. Post-production: We allocate our post-production vendor's services over set periods of time, based upon image counts, and outline that expense to you. We pay a set figure to them for each day's work, and that workload is not delineated by the job where hours are allocated to each job. Further, we may work with our vendor to investigate new production techniques, from plug-ins that produce superior raw-to-jpeg conversions, or other services that benefit you, the end client. The cost for this time, billed by staff, must be spread across our assigned fees per assignment.
By way of example, publishing houses do not request receipts from printing plants for the cost of ink and paper, nor receipts for the wholesale prices paid on the repair of a copier, nor gasoline receipts from the delivery service who delivers the copies of the magazine.
Please discuss with us any issues you have with this policy beforehand.
Markup: What's Yours? How Do You Establish It Fairly?
Very few things are not subject to markup consideration. I don't mark up my hotel or airfare charges, but the figure I quote on the estimate is what the client is charged and is based upon the quote from the hotel and a nominal charge for our time. Typically, it's very close to the actual charge, but issues such as the time involved in booking the ticket (searching for the right flight, determining excess baggage charges, and so on) are included in this item, rather than