As an IC you invoice the company, count your own lines, and receive a paycheck.

• Anybody work with a company bue do your own billling to them, count like 65 cpl and use a program ho - w do you know if you are billing correctly!
  • As an IC you invoice the company, count your own lines, and receive a paycheck. - I have -
  • You are actually supposed to be doing that as an IC. SM - Becky
  • Several programs out there. You have to trust them or do a hand count! :) nm - wanderer
    • I meant that you had to trust your line counting/invoice program, not the employer! :) nm - wanderer
    • They don't count at all, I don't think - , so I have to do it manually.
      • MPCount is free I think, use that, save you a lot of trouble - sm - Laura E.
        • Love my Abacus too! Awesome free program! nm - AbbyCat
          • I've had problems with Abacus' accuracy in the past. - Don't know if it's been fixed in newer versi

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notify them that you will be filing complaints with the Department of Labor, the BBB, the FTC, the state attorney general's office, and small claims court.

Yes, you may have to spend money on a counting program, but isn't it important to have everyone on the same page, so to speak?

to use the word count in Word and then divide it by something to get a standard line count for that report. Has anyone done this before? I forgot the way to calculate when working in Word.

XX

I do not cheat, I count gross lines and from top to bottom but I make sure that it is fair so my price per line is lower and it all equals out in the end.  On chart notes, it is the total amount of lines which includes 2 spaces between patients which then helps to pay for the cutting apart, sticky paper and delivery.  But my accounts are aware of this and again it shows in my per line charge. 

Does anyone know if some MTSOs calculate lines on various accounts differently?  One of my accounts is very difficult to get a decent line count.  While it is more tedious and does not have "normals," it just seems like often I have a shift full of fairly long reports (and a fair number of them), and by feel seems like my line count should be higher.  - I can't help but wonder if lines are calculated differently for this account.

Does anyone know of MTSOs doing that?  Sadly, I am afraid to ask my employer.  

I have pretty much always been paid by the gross line...occasionally I will take a job with a company that pays by characters and I never make as money.  Remember...with gross lines, a line is a line is a line....that means anything on the lines be it one character or 65 is a line.  For instance....today I type a normal file for a client I have worked on for years...if I counted the lines at 65-cpl I got 398 lines, but counting gross lines I got 641 lines.  This is a 38% difference in pay between the two, so you would be making approximately 5 cents a line less on the character count.  Hope this helps :)

Hi,

The solutions others gave are good, but if I just needed to get the number of lines with typing (and don't need an invoice or a report), I'd use a Word macro.

The other solutions offered have this drawback: If the body of your document contains tables, the count Word gives you is vastly inflated, for Word counts each cell in that table as a line. This is not what the eye sees, and becomes problematic when you try to justify such to your client.

Below is a macro for counting what we at Emmaus call Lines Strict. (i.e. Lines with typing on them, vs Lines Extended that includes the blank lines).

To use it, copy from Public Sub through End Sub, and paste it into your macros along with your other macros. Easiest way of doing this is (after you have copied the appropriate lines):

1. Click Tools | Macros, and select an existing macro.

2. Click the Edit button.

3. Once the Visual Basic Editor opens, press Ctrl+End to move to the bottom.

4. Paste the clipboard contents.

5. Click File | Compile Normal. (If you've pasted things that don't belong, it won't compile.)

6. Click File | Close and Return to MS Word.

Merry Christmas!
vJoe
http://www.mpword.com

OOPS! I looked at the HTML code after I pasted the code into the editor on this board, and it added things that when pasted into the Visual Basic Editor in Word will not compile. Here's the code if you want to retype it, but pasting won't work. If you send me an email, I'll attach the code into a .txt document, and you won't have any problems.  vjoet@attglobal.net

Public Sub GetLinesStrictCount()
    Dim CharsStrict As Long
    Dim Count As Long
    Dim ParaswBlanks As Long
    Dim ParasWOBlanks As Long
    Dim LineswBlanks As Long
    Dim BlankLines As Long
    Dim LinesWOBlanks As Long
    Dim NumOfTables As Long
    Dim NumOfRows As Long
    Dim TableRowCount As Long
    Dim x As Integer
   
    TableRowCount = 0
    NumOfTables = 0
    NumOfRows = 0
   
    ActiveDocument.ComputeStatistics (wdStatisticCharacters)
    ActiveDocument.ComputeStatistics (wdStatisticLines)
    CharsStrict = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyCharacters)
    ParasWOBlanks = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyParas)
    LineswBlanks = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(wdPropertyLines)

    NumOfTables = ActiveDocument.Content.Tables.Count
    If NumOfTables > 0 Then
        For x = 1 To NumOfTables
            With ActiveDocument.Content.Tables.Item(x)
                NumOfRows = NumOfRows + .Rows.Count
            End With
        Next
        TableRowCount = NumOfRows
    End If
   
    If CharsStrict > 0 Then
        ParaswBlanks = ActiveDocument.Range(wdMainTextStory).Paragraphs.Count
    Else
        ParaswBlanks = 1
    End If
       
    If LineswBlanks > 1 Then
        LineswBlanks = LineswBlanks + 1
    End If
   
    If ParaswBlanks = 1 And ParasWOBlanks = 1 Then
        BlankLines = 0
    Else
        BlankLines = ParaswBlanks - ParasWOBlanks
    End If
   
    LinesWOBlanks = LineswBlanks - BlankLines
    Count = LinesWOBlanks
   
    MsgBox "Lines Strict (with typing) = " & CStr(Count + TableRowCount)
End Sub

1.  Are you living paycheck-to-paycheck?  Defined:  Missing one paycheck would seriously harm your basic living (housing, food, utilities or necessary meds/medical care).

2.  If you lost your job today, without warning, do you think you could be employed again within 1 payperiod?

3.  Do you have an emergency fund in case a loss of job happens?

My answers:

1.  Missing 1 paycheck would hurt but not devastate me.  Mising 2 or more, yes - it could be dire.

2.  Yes, most definitely.

3.  Started one and slowly building it up.

I started with a company about three weeks ago, and here is the situation.  This is my first transcription job, so I think I was a little too eager to jump at the job offer when it was given to me.  They charge a "set up fee" of 100.00 that is taken out of the first paycheck.  I am only getting paid 5 cents/line, so I did not make that much more than the 100.00 (I think about 40.00).  The pay period ends on the last day of the month and checks are issued on the first of every month.  They do not offer direct deposit, so I have been waiting for the last nine days for my measly 40.00 check.  I really just want it to have documentation that I have paid the stupid set up fee (which I am embarrassed that I even agreed to).  I have emailed them 5 or 6 times with no response whatsoever.  They continue to send me work, and will (usually) answer questions regarding work, but NOTHING about my requests to see where my check is. 

I have since found a much better and higher paying position with another (wonderful) company, but I do not really want to put in my 2 weeks' notice until I have that check.  Any ideas??

Losing even 1 would devastate me.

I am the only wage earner, and it is paycheck to paycheck.

There is nothing set aside to help, just in case.  But I definitely feel I could get another job almost immediately with my skills and experience.

It's a hard knocklife.