billpritjr

Hi Everyone

Quick question

If someone is an outside consultant hired by Company ABC, and is required to travel, what is the more common scenario ? For example, Company ABC is in Chicago, and the consultant is based in Dallas. He needs to fly to Chicago to conduct 360 degree assessements of a group of employees. He will stay in a hotel room and use a rental car.

1. Consultant funds said travel and gets reimbursed by Company ABC via providing receipts, etc.

2. Company ABC directly funds the travel and causes tickets/etc to be issued to the Consultant. Company ABC travel department issues tickets/etc. Consultant is given boarding pass upon check-in and presenting ID at ticket counter. Etc

Sorry if this is a "silly" question however at some point I may be in the same situation and wanted to have a grasp of how it is normally done.

Thank You

HNL

Generally depends upon the size of the company.

Small and mid-sized companies will be more likely to have you accrue the expense and then submit for reimbursement.

A large company may pick up the airfare through there travel department, and book you into a preferred hotel.

Dreamworks

Yeah. It also depends on your size. If you're a one person shop, then they might take care of it all for you. But generally, you book everything and then charge them for it with your monthly invoice. Like HNL said, they might have a nearby hotel they have a rate with that you'll need to stay at. But the airline is generally your call.

/Consultant
// Senior Bottom Feeder

Sweet Willie

this thread will get more visibility in Travelbuzz, so I'm moving there.

Willie
co-moderator Community Buzz

MoreMilesPlease

Let me make sure I understand:

You are the consultant (you own your own business).

You have a contract with a company to provide services.

If this is correct then you need to decide how you want to have travel etc handled and it should be written in the contract agreement.

You can state in the contract that hotels, airfare, rentals, will be invoiced with receipts for client to pay or simply provide an hourly rate with a set travel per diem that will encompass all other cost or you can invoice for some things and have a per diem for others. Everything is open to negotiation by either side.

If you use the other companies services you lose some of your autonomy and flexibility and can get screwed by their policies. If things go wrong then you are at their mercy.

BearX220

Most common system (and most desirable from consultant's point of view) is to spend and get reimbursed. Given that, there is potential for trouble in unmet expectations. If you are the consultant, you should crank out a one-page travel policy of your own (I don't take more than one connection, I don't fly Spirit or Allegiant, etc.) and present it with your proposal or engagement memo. You should also be prepared to respect your client's travel culture. If they think Holiday Inns are fine but you send them a bill for your Four Seasons stay, that'll make a bigger impact than any report you write for them.

billpritjr

Excellent points, you are correct as to the consultant/company role. I see your point regarding flexibility, etc.

Thank you BearX220, more good points.

Thanks everyone...keep it coming

chgoeditor

I'm a self-employed consultant.

Some of my clients book/pay for my travel in advance & I get reimbursed for incidental expenses (cab to/from the airport, meals on the road). Others ask me to front the cost of travel & then I bill it back to them.

In general, the clients that ask me to pay for travel & bill it back to them (or front other large expenses, such as other subcontracted consultants, which is pretty common) are very dependable about paying invoices within 15-30 days. That said, my clients recognize that I'm a small-business owner and floating tens or hundreds of thousands of expenses for >30 days can sometimes put me in a tight financial bind.

Chopsticks

I used to do consulting and I've always kept it simple and asked what the client prefers. In general, I favoured the do-it-myself option, as I was more flexible with choice of airline, hotels etc.

Most importantly, ask about their travel policy up-front, you wouldn't want any discussion about bills, particularly not when you advance the money and bill them later on.

Alternatively, you could write up your own travel policy, include it in your quotes and have them sign it.

Often1

OP - If you really are a consultant, haven't you covered this issue thoroughly in your engagement letter with your client? Anything is negotiable and you ought to determine what you prefer and negotiate for that.

And remember, in the same way that you can predict the marriage from the way the honeymoon goes, you can predict the client relationship based on the engagement negotiations. If you fly F and stay in good hotels and your client mucks with that in negotiations, it's not going to work out anyway, so dump them now and don't wait for it to go south down the road.

On the other hand, if the client asks you to let them book your air travel because they've got a 20% negotiated discount with your preferred carrier, why not?

Ancien Maestro

As an employee travelling, large travel expenses reimbursed would be cumbersome.. but the benefit is receiving points for purchases on cc. Plus, if employees are booking travel, they may not necessarily book the most economic flights, accomodations etc.

BearX220

Agree very much with the first graf -- state your own policy up front. Disagree with the second. If you like to fly F, stay in nice hotels, etc. but resist modifying that stance at least somewhat in negotiations, then it's you who are screwing up the engagement, and for relatively small reasons. Perhaps I'm not the only one who's been deeply embarrassed in the past working alongside consultants who turned in precious little insight / value but were volubly preoccupied with job-site dining, accommodation, premium amenities, etc. OK to have standards of course, but don't risk looking obsessed with your own comfort, especially if client culture is not like that.

billpritjr

this are all good points. I am not a consultant - yet. I have a little while before I retire from my current place and plan to go into consulting after that.

Just getting some ideas on how it works.

Thanks again everyone

MojaveFlyer

I've done a lot of consulting and usually make my own arrangements. I do ask clients if they have a negotiated hotel rate and often they just pay the hotel directly, but I'm easy (don't mind getting the miles for the charged expenses). Every once in a while the client wants their agent to book the flights and if so I just specify which flights I want and they get booked, though I often have to put in my own FF number and maybe change seats once booked.

Ted S

Most of my client work is location agnostic [social / digital / marketing strategy] with occasional meetups at common events, a request to visit their HQ to deliver a strategy in person or my realization that I need to gather requirements / meet the team directly so travel can become a post-engagement discussion which can be tricky.

As a few others mentioned, I find travel to be a big tell. I'm not too picky, I don't book into the highest end properties [but you might chose too], and am not a foodie or big drinker [but you may be], so if someone is telling me to cut back, it throws up flags about how the relationship will be when I tell them what implementing that strategy is going to entail, and not just from me... I don't like developing campaigns that have no hope of being run and haggling over a $500 trip is a great sign of what they're willing to invest into the area I'm working on.

When possible I try to outline my travel approach at the point where I first realize I'll have to travel [i.e. what I fly, hotel types, meal spend] and submit an overall bill based on the transparency established from being upfront. Generally doing this gets the client to respond back with any serious hangups they have [like an exec who will flip if you stay at a certain property no matter what rate you got, or a travel team that insists on booking through them to boost their spend levels].

Keep in mind that the same needs to apply to your fee structure - clients have a way of forgetting that if they opt to skip the day rate, the clock keeps going at 5pm, 6pm and 10pm, so when I'm trying to get out the door to respect their budget, it becomes sticky.