Methods to track time spent editing each photo

[bwehman]

Hi all,

In the interest of reducing the amount of sales tax I need to charge, I've decided to start tracking time spent editing each image. It's seems arduous, but my feeling is that it beats having to charge clients sales tax on the entire project. I'm wondering if you guys have any experience tracking editing time on a per-image basis, and if so, what method you use.

Cheers!
Brandon

 

[sm4him]

*I'm* curious as to how tracking the amount of time you spent editing an image would reduce the amount of sales tax you need to charge?

 

[bwehman]

It depends on the state. Here's an example for where I live, California. Let's say Photos by the Numbers (“PN&#8221 provides digital images to clients as well as printed photos. PN charges clients for session/sitting fees and labor for retouching and enhancing photos. They additionally charge clients separately for full-quality photo images provided via the web for download, as well as for prints. Run by an ornery accountant, each photographer at PN must log their photo editing time by image.Christian and Anastasia utilize PN for all of their events. For one particular event, they select images 1, 5, and 10, to be provided electronically, and 2, 5 and 10, to be printed on large canvas. When invoicing, PN charges a sitting fee, editing labour for all six photos, download fee for three images, and printing fee for three images. The entire transaction is not going to be taxable. As the sitting fee is commingled between tangible products and intangible ones, sales tax is calculated on the full value. Since PN is diligent in its records and knows editing labor by image, sales tax is only allocated on the editing and print income for images 2 and 10. In addition, since image 5 is provided both electronically and physically through print, all editing and printing costs associated with it are also taxed. For images 1 and 10, which are only provided electronically for download, no sales tax liability is incurred.

 

[12sndsgood]

stopwatch? I just genearlly track how many i'm editing an hour. that varies depending on what i'm editing.

 

[bwehman]

I was hoping for something more slick than a stopwatch, but yeah, there doesn't seem to be a more glamorous way.

 

[imagemaker46]

Is this time spent re-touching the images? Crops, colour corrections, that kind if thing?

 

[ryanwaff]

I was hoping for something more slick than a stopwatch, but yeah, there doesn't seem to be a more glamorous way.

You could use the stopwatch on an ipad... Slightly more slick

 

[KmH]

Seems a clock, a stenobook, and a pencil would do.

You could take start stop screen shots that include the time/date on the computer display too.

 

[bwehman]

Is this time spent re-touching the images? Crops, colour corrections, that kind if thing?

Yep, exactly.

 

[ceejtank]

I'd be screwed. I normally start editing a photo, then find some new music to edit to, then watch 15 music videos intermittantly as I edit. Makes editing a long fun process..

 

[bwehman]

Well, the other solution is just to charge the client sales tax and leave it at that. It just sucks since sales tax (8.5% here) can tack on an extra $200-$400.

 

[Overread]

You could always go with averages - a stopwatch and notepad to jot down the times on a series of standard yet varied photos and then work out what your rough editing time is per image. Charge accordingly for that (you can also use it for price estimations including tax) and then simply charge more if you have any photos which take significantly longer than the estimated time (you'll have some leeway between a photo taking a little longer or a lot longer - it might also be important to add up the total estimated amount of time incase you have a large selection of photos that, individually have little time increases, but collectivly add up to a significant amount of additional editing time over the normal).



Whilst a stopwatch and writing it down - or simple writing down the start and end times might seem really simple I can't think of many other ways to do this without simply contriving the method.

 

[CCericola]

For design work I have a stopwatch on my project management software. But I think using a standard stopwatch will work. Although I don't use it for sales tax as NJ has to charge tax for everything including shipping.

 

[rlemert]

You could always go with averages - a stopwatch and notepad to jot down the times on a series of standard yet varied photos and then work out what your rough editing time is per image. Charge accordingly for that (you can also use it for price estimations including tax) and then simply charge more if you have any photos which take significantly longer than the estimated time.

This is essentially what car repair shops and the like do. Jobs are billed "according to book". It's a gamble for individual jobs because you might run into a real hard one, but in the long run the shops come out ahead if they have sharp mechanics that can do "better than book".

The fact that you're concerned about taxes rather that just billing might complicate matters a little.

 

[bwehman]

Yeah, I've been thinking about it all day and the conclusion I've arrived at is to switch my delivery from delivery via flash drives to delivery via some online portal system.