A Fair Telecommuting Budget? 38
homework asks: "Last night, I got a call from my boss asking me to define a budget for me to work from home. What items should I include in the figures so that I can show that the use of my home and my personal equipment can be compensated for fairly. Should I include my salary into the figures? Has any other Slashdot reader been in a similar situations and what was the outcome? Were you treated fairly?"
Look to the IRS (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, maybe all of that is overkill. Your actual cost of occasional telecommuting may be as simple as "enable an SSH and IPsec gateway on the corporate LAN, pay a monthly DSL/cable modem/frac-T1 fee".
Re:Look to the IRS (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Look to the IRS (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd just go and pay a good accountant for an hour of their time and get them to help you out. They know what is and what isn't deductable as business-related expenses and can help with deciding on what to charge the company for the use of space within your home for their gain.
There are very location specific taxation rules about how much space and what level of working from home you must do for it to be considered a legitimite business related expense. You'd have to include details for all that stuff.
Budget for a new PC - something reasonably modern. Budget for a broadband internet connection - you'll need a decent bandwidth back to the office to be truly productive these days; even M$ Word files crank in at over a meg for simple documents.
Don't forget to budget for high quality office furniture if you need it - a good, large desk and a VERY high quality and comfortable chair. You'll want a filing cabinet, stationary - some notebooks, pens, blank CDs, post-it notes, etc.
Do you need a printer, scanner, photocopier, fax machine, extra phone line, mobile telephone, etc to do your job. Price them and include them if you do.
Remember that all the computer equipment and lighting will use power. Work out roughly how much power (my power bill very literally doubles if I run my machine 24x7.
There are lots of things - it comes down to what equipment you realy need to successfully perform your job. If they want a budget to set you up at home, then give them a detailed breakdown of costs involved. They'll tell you if it' too fat and you can trim it until they're happy with it.
Careful! (Score:2)
Yes ask what you can do. However remember that just because you can doesn't mean you should! I know small business owners with a dedicated room for the business, dedicated computers. They don't write it off though, because when they sell they pay capital gains on that space, while the rest of the house is tax-free. (They are builders, they build their house for cost every 2 years)
So ask what you can do, but also ask what the downside of doing it is. It might not be worth it. It might be worth pay
Re:Look to the IRS (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only tax rules. Some jurisdictions require that if you are earning an income in your home, that you have to have a business licence/permit for that address. Which then causes the municipal government to ask: "Is this address zoned for non-residential purposes?"
Of course, if you are telecommuting you can probably fly under their radar for ever, as long as you don't have co-workers or clients visiting.
Re:Look to the IRS (Score:2)
Re:Look to the IRS (Score:2)
Ask your boss! (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't know why you're asking us that - ask your boss if he wants your salary in the numbers or not. Or better still, just use your initiative and give him the figure and explicitly state whether or not it includes your salary, based on $X K p.a.
Re:Ask your boss! (Score:2, Funny)
I mean if you approach your boss regarding such a matter.. your job might end up being the next one outsourced to india...
Just a paranoid thought
Re:Ask your boss! (Score:4, Insightful)
Last company I was at said 'you can come in to work every day, or you can work from home every day provided you have the ability (ie, high speed internet, a phone, a quiet room with a door, a desk and space to put the laptop.'
Pretty simple math there.
If telecommuting is something you want to do, and if you already have all of the above (lets face it - anybody worthy of telecommuting already has high speed internet, etc) then make it real easy for your boss to say yes : tell him you want a telecommuting budget of $0.
Honestly - how much do you really stand to make? $100 per month maybe? At $6 per workday lunch in the cafe you come out ahead. Add in commute time, wear and tear on the vehicle, gas costs, just getting an extra hour or two back in your day, and the benefit of working in your fuzzy bunny slippers
Otherwise put down a dollar figure you are happy with - say $200 a month to be 'fair' considering cablemodem, phone, 'office rent' for the bedroom you will convert to an office, fax line, etc. What could happen other than them saying yes or them saying no and making you continue driving in to the office each day to sit in your cube.
Re:Ask your boss! (Score:2)
Re:Ask your boss! (Score:2)
Unless it is already set up, i thi
Use your network! (Score:2, Informative)
Talk someone in finance (especially if it's a large company.) They will know the rules and will help you prepare something that will make a good impression on your boss.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Our few guys that work offsite generally bill us for their cable/DSL and a phone, landline or cell, for about $100/month. We don't pay for home office space and we don't pay for mobile WiFi connections (except for the executives). We provide the laptop and other machines and they can expense a few things here and there, like a switch or router or KVM, but everyone can do that.
Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of times it seems like people either try to cheat their company into paying for more stuff than they need to do their job, or for significantly better stuff than they need to do their job (if, say, you'll only be using SSH to talk to servers via command line, then there's no reason to try to get the company to pay for a bleeding edge machine when something a generation or two old will do just fine).
On the other hand, a lot of people let themselves be screwed by just eating the costs of things like a desk and chair, or a router (for some reason everyone manages to get at least part of their internet bill paid).
In the end, you probably won't get the company to pay for everything that you cite as a cost, but the difference might be made up wholly or partially just buy things like the money you save on commuting, the money you save on health care by not getting sick from stress from having to go into the office every day, etc.
Re:Simple (Score:1)
Re:Simple (Score:2)
I told my boss that I had a home office set up already with all the stuff I needed, but according to my boss, it was company policy. The explanation given was basically that any work I did had to be on a company computer, even it it was located at my house. Basically al
Re:Simple (Score:2)
I'm going to guess that they have an insurance contract which covers injuries to employees while using company-owned equipment. Given that RSI is a major issue for office workers, they'd have wanted to be absolutely certain that you were covered, even if it meant paying for an extra des
This is easy (Score:5, Informative)
Internet
Find out the full cost of the highest speed internet you can get - include the phone line or minimum legal cable rate (that is different than basic cable usually by $15-$20 per month). Get it in writing or an email from the cable or DSL company.
Phones
The question here is home phone or cell phone. If your company provides cells, then this issue is dead. If your company doesn't then find out what the 1500 minute per month or better plans cost and submit that for your budget.
If it's a home phone, Packet 8 and Vonage are great and give you business class features for $29-$39/month. Your boss will like unlimited long distance and the fact that you have real voice mail and the ability to handle multiple calls elegantly.
Fax
The question here is do you need to send them or just get them. If you are just getting them, your company's fax server or eFax is great. If you are sending, get a fax machine or multifunction device that can work without the computer being turned on.
Supplies
Ink cartridges are expensive. Figure out how much printing you will do and add 25% for crappy inkjet scammage (i.e cleaning mode & so on). Then calculate ink jet carts+$20/mo for supplies (pens, paper, etc...)
Up Front.
You might get $150 up front for furniture if you ask nice. You'll also need to buy a multifunction/fax machine ($150 for a good one), pay any set up fees for DSL/Cable, purchase a good router if you don't have one ($50).
So here's the deal:
Re:This is easy (Score:1)
Ink cartridges are expensive. Figure out how much printing you will do and add 25% for crappy inkjet scammage (i.e cleaning mode & so on). Then calculate ink jet carts+$20/mo for supplies (pens, paper, etc...)
Unless you need color printing, I see no reason to buy an inkjet printer. One can get a decent laserjet for $200, or even less if you find a sale. Your boss will appreciate the lower cost of supplies, and you'll definitely appreciate not having to run out and buy a new cartridge every mon
Re:This is easy (Score:2)
You might get $150 up front for furniture if you ask nice...
I won't argue as to whether or not that is true, but I'd say you'll need at least triple that to actually buy the furniture you'll need. Good chairs (that can be sat in for many hours/day) will easily be more than $200. Certainly I have yet to sit in a chair for $150 or less that I could
Figure in BUSINESS cable/internet (Score:2)
Your company's paying for it, so see if they'll pony up real money for a proper business level 24/7 connection. If not, point out the various problems with using a consumer level connection. You're going to be living on the net, so you'd better have that link locked down tight.
I can't find pricing, but I can't imagine it would be more than $200/month, which I would think is well within the parameters for your company. If it's not, you can
Re:Figure in BUSINESS cable/internet (Score:2)
Speaking as one of those bosses, I'd laugh my ass off and say, "ummmmm... no" if someone tried to say they needed a fixed IP business grade high upstream cable connection for their home office. I would probably be concerned about what all they were going to spend company time playing with with that server bandwidth
I can't find pricing,
Be reasonable (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Be reasonable (Score:2)
Dude, I want to work where you work!
A Fair Telecommuting Budget? (Score:1)
Not just cost see what the market will bear. (Score:2)
Figure out how much it costs them for you to work in the office.
Figure out how much it costs you to work from home minus how much it costs you to work in the office.
cost is not just money - include time and other intangibles - e.g. no coworkers to chat with can be a minus or plus depending on you and your situation.
If there's a nice value in between that makes both of you happy then you can have
Don't use your own computer (Score:2)
Other possible items:
Seperate phone line or cell phone.
Decent Fax machine
Internet access, If they won't pay your entire DSL bill cosider upgrading to the
Andrade & Associates (Score:1)
Office Supplies and Setup (Score:2)
I used to work for a major bank and they did that with me. They brought over a desktop, Printer, and had they IT guys come over and set up a network so we could share the cable connection and then locked the computer (like the office) where I couldn't change anything on i
Don't forget about... (Score:1)
Don't forget electricity (Score:1)
Some things to consider (Score:1)
One more telecommuting suggestion... (Score:1)
Re:One more telecommuting suggestion... (Score:1)