Minutes to Decimals

When charging for transcription we need to be aware that: 

1. There are 60 seconds in 1 minute and 1 minute is equal to 60 seconds. 

2. There are 60 minutes in 1 hour and 1 hour is equal to 60 minutes. 

HOWEVER

3. There are 100 pennies in £1.  

I was asked to quote for transcribing some files. We will say I was told these were 120 minutes, 130 minutes and 150 minutes (400 minutes total). I duly quoted a per audio minute rate in rough terms and awaited the audio files to confirm. 

When the files arrived and were loaded into my transcription software I found I had files of 79 minutes, 88 minutes and 111 minutes – 278 minutes total. The files were intact with a definite sign-off at the end so I knew they were the complete files. 

The customer had worked out the charge for the 400 minutes and was happy. However because of this issue of thinking in tens and then thinking in sixes they had interpreted 1 hour 20 minutes as 120 minutes – 1 hour 30 minutes as 130 minutes – 1 hour 50 minutes as 150 minutes – when 1 hour is only equal to 60 minutes not 100 minutes. 

They were very happy to find their bill would be significantly less than they had expected and happy with having this explained. 

It is less pleasant to explain this the other way which usually happens when I have transcribed a number of short files and the timesheet works out slightly more than the customer was expecting. This is because a file of say, 4 minutes 30 seconds is equal to a file of 4.5 minutes not 4.3 minutes (30 seconds is half a minute or 0.5 minutes). We convert the minutes to a decimalised figure to be able to charge in £s where £1 is equal to 100p not 60p. 

I use a spreadsheet that displays file lengths as audio minutes and audio seconds, then displays the decimalised minutes figure in an adjacent column and finally the total cost of the file to help people understand how files are charged for.